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ROMANCE OF THE MAINE COAST 

In Five Volumes 



I. Ye Romance of Casco Bay. 
II. Ye Romance of Old York. 

III. SoKOKi Trail. 

IV. Ancient Pemaquid. 
V. Land of St. Castin. 







1^ 






f^C. 



■^ r 

./A^^/^^. ,,1/ 



*'lfe" 



FRAZER'S HEAD, BASIN OF MINAS 



MAINE COAST ROMANCE 

Xanb ot St. Caetin 

BY 

HFRHFRT MTI.TON SYLVESTER 




BOSTON 

m. 36. Clarice Co, 

26-28 Tremont St. 
1909 






CopjTJght, 1909, by Herbert M. Sylvester 
All rights reserved 




Printed at the Everett Press, Boston 



251088 



'K- 




AUTHOR'S EDITION 

This edition is limited to ono thousand copies 
printed from the face type. This is No. 



Tin: LAXI) OF ST. CASTIN 

IS IX.SCHIBED 

By THE Al'THOR 

TO 

(JEXKRAL CHARLKS HA.MI.IX 
OF Bangor, Mai.nk 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY 




^'^ 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY 



1 1 IS, my most excellent 
and dear friend, is the 
fifth of tlic series which 
I have assenil)h'd under 
the generic title of 
Si. " Maine Coast Ro- 
-^niance." Willi this vol- 
ume the series is com- 
]»lete. At this stage, 
however, I have the 
feeling that the end 
crowns the work. 
\\'liatever the cai)tious critic, the anticjuarian 
Drya.sdust with cranium filled with dates and doubt- 
ful facts, may have to .say as to lack of detail, or lack 
of fulness or ultimate achievement, I will confess, 
having in view the original plan of the work, that it 
has not been an easy task to restore so many of the 
Lazarus family to even seniblant life. 

13 




14 EPISTLE DEDICATORY 

In the press of the present-day commercialism, in 
literature especially, it was not easy to reincarnate, 
or rather revitalize, the ozone-bereft atmosphere of 
the '4ean days" when to exist was the chief end of 
man; and I have touched hardly more than here or 
there, like a bird in its flight northward through the 
first spring days, hardly dropping the wing until the 
rugged shores of the Passamaquoddy had been passed 
and Du Monts' famous Isle de St. Croix but filled 
the vision. 

It has been a most delightful journey, and its com- 
panionships have been most varied and interesting. 
Ghostly footsteps have kept me company and ghostly 
voices have whispered their secrets in my ears. The 
musty smell of long unused garrets has been the pre- 
vailing odor, — the spiritless smell of long-ago gath- 
ered mints and herbs that powder at the touch of 
alien hands, the garnishings of the ancient rooftrees. 
It has been a vision of delicately hand-carved wains- 
cotings ; of anciently tiled fireplaces ; comfortable, old- 
fashioned high-backed settles, and high-boys, too; of 
quaintly- wrought door-knockers; silent, mouldy halls; 
blear-eyed windows ; fireless and long deserted hearths ; 
decrepit chimneys; houses sightless, tenantless, lone, 
and friendless — and of unkempt hollows afield, 
relics of human toil and hope and baffled aspiration, 
that speak of a people with hearts as warm and hands 
as willing as our own. 

Ghostly handwritings these, but possessing in- 
finite charm and variety of story. It may be, how- 
ever, that these volumes are worth more for the sug- 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY 15 

gestions they offer than for their intrinsic value as a 
record of times disintegrate, broken, lilve something 
once carefully wrought by the potter on his wheel 
and strewn by the wayside of the centuries. 

History these stories are, but served al fresco with 
something of the flavor of the romance which attaches 
to far-off happenings and things; and I apprehend 
that to each of my readers the coloring may suggest 
a different dye. Like a succession of sunsets, it is 
ever the same sun and the same horizon, yet each set 
of sun is a glory l)y itself, as unlike its predecessor as 
the iiuman experience of one day is unlike that of 
another. 

The Land of St. Ca.stin is a delightful country, as 
are all lands where linger the myth, the tradition, and 
the legend. It is a delightful environment in which 
to leave the reader, after so much of the lore of the 
Dryasdust sort oftentimes confounded with the le- 
gitimate lore of the anti(|uary; for this salt-savored 
land is rich with the liveliest suggestion. It was the 
wide domain of the Bnshaba, the glow of whose slow- 
setting suns wrought miracles of splendor along the 
shaggy toi)s of its wilderness woods, and painted on 
their dusky horizons the pinnacled towers of a city 
like what Patmian John saw as the reascending New 
Jerusalem. 

Here was the land of tiie lone cross, 

" the Norman's nameless grave," 

the silent relic left to greet Champlain as he scanned 
the sun-flecked mosses at his feet for a sign to point 



IG EPISTLE DEDICATORY 

the way to the fal^led Noruiiilx'ga. Here slept and 
(lr(>ainetl away his loneliness and fatigue, the ma- 
rooned Ingram, spent with hunger and harassed by 
dangers seen and unseen, who, wrapped in the silences 
of the Penobscot woods, saw glorious visions. Here, 
too, was the theatre of hinnan passion where Charles 
of Estienne and D'Aulnay inaugurated a play of 
sanguinary hate, a rough-set stage above the yellow 
sands of Pentagoet, across which strode in turn priest 
and puritan. Here, too, was the Ste. Famille of L'Au- 
vergat, the wilderness seignory of the elder St. Castin, 
the first baron of the untutored Tarratine. Eastward 
still is where the shadow of the Cross was first paintetl 
by the sun across the sands of Sieur de Champlain's 
famous "Isle des Monts Deserts." 

A famous country, indeed! A land of pictured 
skies, of limpid waters, of lovely homes, and gracious 
hospitalities. Happy is that one whose lines are drawn 
within the infinite charm of dear old Maine, — the 
soughing song of the winils through her pines; the 
rhythmic lapping of the tides along her picturesque 
shores; the eternal lesson of her restless waters where 
— with the coming of every day and night — sun, 
moon, and stars write in litpiid glory the mystery 
of th(^ ages. 

Blessed is the man whose character lias been nur- 
tured in the cradle of her hills and valleys, whose 
rugged lines and full-rounded contours have found 
like expression in his native strength and grace; his 
clear integrity and wide-eyed charity; his notable 
magnanimity and unflinching courage; his sturdy 



EPISTLE DEDICATORY 17 

manhood and his great heart,— the golden heart of 
her towering pines. 

My friend, kindly accept this foreword to '' The Land 
of St. Castin" as the author's acknowledgment of the 
gracious suggestion and earnest word of commenda- 
tion you gave me to your friends, who as well lent me 
their kindly thought to make possible the goal of my 
ambition. You lent me what you have ever been 
lending others; and doubly cheering is the thought 
that the good thus done in my behalf, being faithfully 
ajiplied, may, like the widening circles of the pebble 
dropped into the stream, pass out to the readers of 
these romances with combined and multiplied effect, 
till its final reach is beyond our comprehension or 
our hope. 

1 am most sincerely, 




PREFACE 







PREFACE 

T has always sociiiccl to the wri- 
er as if the preface were a 
sujjerfluous preliniinaiy, one of 
those literary extravagances 
of paper, ideas, and pos- 
sibly of I'liergy, a conven- 
tion ai)purtenant to the 
society of books, exacted 
by the critic and the book- 
lover alike — but to what 
purpose? No author but 
would do without it if he could. One does not always 
feel like doing literary acrobatics, for that is some- 
thing to be done gracefully. 

21 




22 PREFACE 

But what is a preface other than a white feather 
from the pkimage of the farm chanticleer with which 
the housewife tests the cjuaUty of the lye (this word 
is readily susceptible of another spelling) in the soap- 
making days! It may Ije a tuning-fork which one 
lightly taps against one's anticipations, as if to sound 
the key to which the author has pitched his compo- 
sition. 

I prefer, however, to regard it as a boutonniere 
which the author has pinned lovingly, solicitously, 
to the lapel of his volume, with a hope to disarm, in a 
degree, the hypercritical individual who is never 
satisfied with his ink-horn until he has dropi)ed a 
lump of jjotash into it so he may color the nib of his 
j)en with its violet flame, and, as well, to win a glance 
of pleased appreciation. The author is like a guest 
whose foot for a moment presses the inner thresh- 
old, who, after a j^leasant greeting from those who 
know him best, is merged into the throng which has 
preceded him. Happy is he, indeed, if his hostess 
kindly suggests: "You nuist not hurry away, my 
friend — we nuist have a talk over the old times." 
So he waits patiently, to be remembered and sought 
out later, for all the multiplicity of gentle anxieties 
that come with the entertaining of many guests; or, 
to be forgotten. 

I have somewhat more to write of the times so old 
that the memory of man goeth not back to even their 
latter days, and of a people whose ways were cast in 
a rude mould, and whose burial-places Nature has 
long since obliterated. Let me play the host with 



PREFACE 



23 



the hope, dear reader, that you will accept my hospi- 
tality for a space, and with the sincere desire that 
you may find in my company some measure of enter- 
tainment, inasmuch as I am altogether charmed and 
fascinated by my own recall of the once realities that 
gave to the country of the ancient Penobscot the 
romance of St. Castin. whose tide-l)uffeted waters 
still echo to the paddle of the al^origine, and whose 
hoary hemlocks still exhale the odorous smokes of 
the Tarratine. 

THE AUTHOR. 










W^ TTTrr A 




P^: 







I. NoiUMBEGUA. 

II. Sainte Croix. 

III. I'entagoet. 

I\'. The Pahi.sh of Sainte Famille. 

V. L'Isle des Monts Deserts. 



DRAWINGS 




Land of St. Castin (Half-title) 

Frontispiece, Frazer's Head 

] 'i(/nette, Title-page 

Headband, Dedicatory Epistle \'A 

Initial i:^ 

Tailpiece 17 

Headband, Preface 21 

Initial 21 

Tailpiece 2'A 

Points of Vieiv 25 

Headband, Drawings . 29 

Tailpiece 33 

Prelude 37 

Tailpiece 39 

29 



30 DRAWINGS 

PAGE 

Headband 43 

Initial 43 

Map 44 

Map 47 

Autographs, Champlain and LoTour 52 

Map, Nancy Globe 53 

The Reach 56 

Grand Manan 59 

On the Penobscot River 62 

Cape Porcupine 64 

Trossachs of Camden 66 

Isle au Haul 68 

Mt. Katahdin 72 

Old Maid and Sea Gull Cliff, Southern Head, 

Grand Manan 75 

St. Anns Bay, Cape Breton 77 

Indian Beach, Grand Manan SO 

Oldest House on Prince Edward's Island .... 82 

Trossachs of Camden 90 

Nortlicrn Head, Grand Manan 95 

Alongshore, Isle an Haul 99 

Great Harbor, Cape Breton 103 

Tailpiece 104 

Headband 107 

Initial • ■ 107 

Old Wharf, Passamaquoddy Bay 110 

Trossachs of Camden 113 

Map 114 

Map 116 

Annapolis Bay, Royal 119 

Ba><in of Minus 121 



DRAWINGS 31 



PAGE 



Douchet's Island, Where De Monts Wintered . . 124 

Isle de St. Croix 126 

Old Powder House, Eastport 128 

Annapolis Gut 131 

Cope Split 135 

St. Croix River from Luhec 138 

Port Royal 140 

Blomidon 143 

Luhec Narrows 145 

A Deer Island Relic 149 

Cherry Island 154 

Annapolis Basin 156 

Tailpiece 160 

Headband ... 161 

Initial 161 

A Glimpse of the Penobscot 164 

Ou-Vs Head Light 173 

Hieroglyphics, Damariscotta 178 

Map . 181 

Islesboro Shore .185 

An Old Blockhouse 188 

The Flume, Rockland Breakwater 194 

Standish and Bradford Autographs 195 

Camden Hills 199 

Oivl's Head Light 203 

Plan of Fort Pentagoct 207 

Trask's Rock, Blockhouse Head 210 

Where the English Landed in 1779 213 

Plate Found at Pentagoet 218 

Fort Point .221 

Ruins of Fort George . . 224 



32 DRAWINGS 

PAGE 

Headband 227 

Initial 227 

St. Castings Autograph 239 

A Bit of Old Castine 247 

Goose Creek 256 

Fish-Houses, Old Castine 260 

Oakum Bay 265 

A Street in Old Castine 268 

A Glimpse of Rare Old Castine 273 

Fort George 277 

Remains of the Old Fort at Pentagoet 279 

A Castine Street 284 

One of the Tilden Ancestry 289 

Dijce's Head Light 299 

The Hooke House 303 

The Castle 307 

The Netv St. Famille, Indian Town 310 

FortGriffeth 313 

Tailpiece 314 

Headband, Mount Desert 317 

Initial 317 

Map, Mont Desert 320 

Newport Mountain 323 

Green Mountain 326 

Porcupine 331 

Mouth of Somes^ Sound 335 

*S^. Saveur 338 

So77ies' Sound. 343 

The Profile 345 

Echo Lake 346 

Saddleback Ledge 349 



DRAWINGS 33 

PAGE 

Bass Harbor Head 35j^ 

Devil's Den, Schooner Head 355 

The Cave, Schooner Head 355 

Gorge of Schooner Head 3gl 

Spouting Horn 352 

Otter Cliff .".'.'.".'.' 367 

Great Head 359 

Devil's Den 373 

Old Bruce House, Machias, Where Talleyrand 

Stopped 376 

The Ovens 379 

Tailpiece 380 







PRELUDE 



VVIicie olifc I lie li();ir\ liciri- 

locks IcaiM'tl . 

O'or P/iiiu\viiii,skck'H ti(|«.', 
Oi' niooicfl I)ii Mollis his \ 

llllll (if n;i|. 

I Im yellow ,saii(|,s licMdc, 
'i'liGHaiioiH Hiill lean (t'cr the 
rail, 
The Heii-/^ull.s HcTeuin and 
wheel, 
Not wliiter than the smokcH 
that trail 
l'"roiii (jiir Hwil't Hteeiin dI 
Hteel. 




O, lar-l and I'ar, llw -lia.l 
owH lly! 

'Mil' IlliHtH HtCal llji llir 

HtreuMi; 
From i'eiitugrjct'rt diifiky 
I (inert 
'I'ln; liieH of Cantiii j/leani; 
T\n' pliaiitonirt of a liiindu'd 
iiiandh 
Athwail I lie uooillandM 
reel, 




37 



38 PRELUDE 

Where broods the swarthy Tarratine — 
The Wolf of Sainte Famille. 

What sounds are these that softly break 

The silence of the air — 
The tinkle of a silver bell, 

A chant, a voice of prayer! 
Above the chapel's leafy nave 

The new moon's censer swings; 
Beneath the shadow of a Cross 

The warlocks bend in rings. 

Up leap the half-breed and his spawn — 

The wild l)east scents its j^rey. 
What stays the wan, uplifted hand 

Of tonsured Lauverjait? 
Is it the Shade of Norridgewack 

That parts the misty pall; 
The ihrob of Moulton's stealthy tread 

Along Kenduskeag's wall? 

Nay, 't is the echo of a shot — 

The death-sob of RalU'; 
And baron, j^riest, and acolyte 

Have vanished all, away. 
The startletl woods wait breathless, mute; 

For Harmon's soles of cork 
Bring down from red Nanrantsouak 

The vengeance of Old York. 

The salt tides ever moan and fret; 

But no more, Sainte Famille, 
Shall knight of France, or dusky bride 

Beside thine altar kneel; 



PRELUDE 



39 



Nor Norombegua's golden snare 

Its wild emprise regain; 
Or lonely grave, or cross, reveal 

A Patmos to Champlain. 

The bittern booms above its bog; 

The lone loon, in its lake 
Far off, halloos across the night, 

Weird, isolate, opaque; 
The saw-whet rasps the awesome dark, 

And on its dank breath comes 
The incense of the lowlands, where 

The swamp-frogs beat their drums, 

To throng these shadowy aisles with ghosts,- 

Gray Anselme and his horde; 
Where oft, with pallitl hands outstretched, 

A spectral priest is heard; 
For, ever when the sunset flames, 

St. Castin's watch-fires glow; 
And through Penobscot's deep'ning gloom 

His wraith stalks to and fro. 




NORUMBEGUA 




NORUMBEGUA 




T is with a fine fcclini^ of anticipa- 
tion and with buoyant step one 
api)n)acli('s the portals of fabled 
Xdiinnhegua, keeping to the 
mighty stream that flowed past 
its once golden roofs and towers, 
threadint; its wilderness trails, 
scanning the grit of its rocks or 
^^jpl^' the velvety j)ile of its mosses for 
- the footprints of the adventurous 
"^ C'hami)lain. — a lantl of tradition 

illuiiiin(il with the glow of a barbaric splendor; awe- 
sonic in its lone terrors of untamed Nature; beset by 
a\'arice and, latei', l>>' ]»i-icst]y intrigue; gi-im with 
the barbarities and treachei'ies. the hates, of a sav- 
age race; and through it all shines Love's seductive 

4:} 



44 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



romance, not unlike the filtering rays of the sunnner 
sun that make luminous the feathery foliage of its 
primeval hemlocks, to write a cheerful prophecy on 
the forest-floors in mesh of checkered shade. 

Its traditions begin with the coming of the observ- 
ant Champlain. ^>rrazzano and the Cabots had un- 
witting passed the Bashaba's royal domain, described 




BRAS D OR, CAPE BRETON 



by John Rut as a "vast and opulent region," whose 
voyage has been cited as the earliest having any 
connection with any territorial portion of the No- 
rumbegua about which so many fables were writ- 
ten. This was in 1527, but on a map of a date two 
years later, ascribed to Verrazzano, the name '^Aran- 
bega" appears, by which it was intended to locate 
the coasts of Nova Scotia. Rut's voyage is shrouded 
in much obscurity, though Purchas gives the names 
of the two ships. There is only the letter of Rut to 
Henry VIII. on his return, with the letter of the 
Italian Albert de Prato, a canon of St. Paul's, 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 45 

London, to the Cardinal Wolsey. According to the 
chronicles of Grafton and Hall, these ships were sent 
out by the king, May 20, 1527. Rut's ship was the 
Mary of Guilford. The other was the Sampson, 
which was supposed to have been lost in a storm 
along the Norumbega coast, the northeastern ex- 
tremity of which was Cape Breton. Rut was sup- 
posed to have made some explorations of the country. 
Hakluyt alleges the fact that Rut searched ''the 
state of those unknown regions." 

It was in 1539 that Xorumbega caught the glory of 
the western sun, when the Dieppe cai)tain wrote a 
narrative in which the country from Breton to 
P'lorida was painted in glowing colors; and three years 
later the River of Norumbega (Penol)scot) was de- 
scribed on Jean Alfonse Gastaldi's map. Ramusio 
narrows the territorial limits from Breton to the par- 
allel of New Jersey. On Lok's map (1582) Norum- 
bega appears as an island, with the Penobscot as its 
southern boundary. In 1620 Captain John Smith 
bounds Norumbega on the south by \'irginia, while 
Champlain limits it to the Province of Maine: and it 
was up the great river of the Panawanskek and around 
the site of old Pentagoet that he sought for the fabled 
capital in the early fall of 1()()4. It was a magnificent 
dream, that lingered in the brain of Heylin as late as 
1669,— a city of houses upheld by pillars of silver 
and crystal, and of which Francis I. made Roberval 
the patentee and, according to Charlevoix, Lord of 
Norumbega, a freak of credulity that .shook with 
jolly laughter the sides of Marc Lescarbot, who had 



46 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

been able, of all this towered city, to find only a few 
huts of bark. 

The first Englishman here who can be located with 
any certainty is the original promoter of ancient 
Norumbega, David Ingram. His story was one of 
hardship, having been marooned by Captain John 
Hawkins in October of 1568 on the coast of the Gulf 
of Mexico, by reason of lack of ship supplies. There 
were about a hundred of these sailors set ashore when 
Hawkins sailed away. Whither they drifted, or what 
became of them, is unknown, with the exception of 
Ingram and two companions. Ingram, aware of the 
fact that the waters of northern America were fre- 
quented for fish, and that, in that direction, he was 
more than likely to come across his country-people, 
and having a wholesome fear of the Spaniards, by 
whom the country where Hawkins dropped him 
was infested, turned to the trails tending in that 
course. What became of his "twentie" companions 
is not recorded, but Ingram, Brown, and Twid kept 
to the coast, living on roots, or now and then supping 
with the friendly savage, to cross Massachusetts into 
Maine. So Ingram kept on until he reached the Penob- 
scot River. It was here he, like John of Patmos, saw 
unrolled before his wondering gaze a rich and splendid 
city, populous and of wide extent, whose constructive 
material was silver and precious stones, and whose 
metalled roofs glistened in the sun like molten gold. 
The miracle was so complete that he was able to 
traverse its length, where he was amazed at the fine 
and costly peltries which the people used for mats 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 47 

and beds. Poor Ingram, after his experiences for 
weeks amid the lonely wilds of an apparently inter- 
minable and untrodden wilderness, his brain as weary 
and worn as were his feet with their interminable 
plodding, was wonderfully impressed with the vil- 
lage of the Indian Bashaba, which he describes as 
little less than a mile in length, for it was probably 
there that he was able to rest himself and to i)artake 

CoasV op A\auu'- 

of the savage hospitality oi the natives, to hnd the 
sum of his immediate happiness complete. Later he 
pressed on to the St. John's River, and there he found 
the Gargarine, whose master was Captain Champagne, 
with whom he sailed away for sunny France, to find 
his way across the Channel. That he made the jour- 
ney from the Gulf to St. John's River is not to be 
doubted, as phenomenal as it may seem, and the 
wondering Londoners were not likely to soon tire of 




48 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

his Miinchausen-like stories. The more stories he told, 
the more fertile grew his imagination, the wider his 
vocabulary, and marvel crowded the heels of other 
marvels. Greatest of all was the magnificent city 
to which he held the keys for a little, which he located 
in the deeps of the Penobscot woods, through which 
ran a mighty river where pearls were to be had for 
the fishing. It was a popular tale, and it had to be oft 
repeated. It was infectious, for others had heard of 
it, and corroborated Ingram, as if they hoped to share 
with the sailor wizard something of his growing cel- 
ebrity. He had a train of gaping listeners at his heels, 
and for a time he held his audience fairly well, until 
his embellishments had become so profuse that they 
were stamped by the most credulous as figments of 
a disordered brain, which was a sensible solution of 
the wondrous tale. 

Ingram's stories were not without their use. The 
public attention was attracted to the strange country, 
and over their mugs of good brown ale the good folk 
talked and drank and drank and talked until the 
tavern-keeper was fain to rake up his fire and get to 
bed. Cupidity was at the bottom of it all. It had the 
glamour of a get-rich-quick-and-easy scheme, some 
germs of which, it may truthfully be said, still linger 
in the air one breathes. Vessels were fitted out and 
men sailed away to look for themselves upon the 
fabled scene. One of these expeditions was that of 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, 1578, of which Dee's Diary 
has a mention under the date of August 5, 1578: 
" Mr. Raynolds, of Bridewell, took his leave of me as 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 



49 



he passed toward Dartmouth to go with Sir Umfrey 
Gilbert towards Hochelaga." Hochelaga was an 
Indian village near the site of Montreal, discovered 
by Cartier in 1535, which had disappeared before 








a 



Champlain iiiadc his explorations up tiie St. Law- 
rence: but when Sir Humphrey made his voyage its 
generic application inckuled the lands now comprising 
the Canadas. It is not known that he sailed so far 
south as the Penobscot. At least, there is no mention 
of it. 

In 1579 a "little ftrigate" sailed away from Eng- 
lish Dartmouth under Simon Ferdinando. The en- 



50 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

terprise was promoted by Sir Francis Walsingham, 
Secretary of State. Three months later Ferchnanclo 
had returned. It was the first recorded Enghsh ex- 
pedition to Norumbega. It is uncertain as to what 
part of the Norumbega country he made his way, but 
it was no doubt in the vicinity of the Penobscot. No 
account is given as to the results of the voyage. A 
year later, however, John Walker, the first English- 
man to part the waters of the Penobscot, made the 
voyage in the service of Sir Humphrey Gilbert. He 
sailed into the river of Norumbega, explored its shores, 
and made the acc^uaintance of the natives, to cor- 
roborate Allefonsce and Ingram as to its furs, which 
were abundant and of great richness. He found a 
silver-mine from which one writer avers considerable 
gold and silver has been taken, but that could not 
have been in Maine. He engaged in the fur trade, 
loaded his ship, and then set sail for France, where he 
disposed of his cargo at a round price, getting as much 
as forty shillings each for the " hides'' he had secured 
of the natives. He would have found as excellent a 
market in England as in France; but, like the later 
James Rosier, he perhaps did not care to take the 
English public into his confidence, no doubt intend- 
ing to return to the region of the Penobscot for further 
commodities of a similar nature. Much secrecy was 
practised in those days, as all such ventures from 
English ports were of a private character and de- 
pended upon individual resources for their prosecu- 
tion. 

Three years later, 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 51 

sailed for Xcwfoundland, of wliicli he took possession 
for the Crown, erecting a pillar to which was attached 
a metal plate, and from whence he set sail for No- 
rumbega. Near Sable Island he ran into a heavy gale 
which swamped his best and largest ship, the Ad- 
miral. Dismayed by his loss, which carried with it 
most of his provisions, he turned his prow to the 
eastward. The sails of his " little ffrigate " filled away, 
and he had sighted the Azores when another storm 
broke over him, and in its fury, as it drove him 
through the black night, he tried to quiet his sailors 
by telling them that it was as near to Heaven by sea 
as by land, which was true; for, a little after, his bin- 
nacle lamp was l)Iown, and his shiji went down — 
possibly the same craft which had safely taken Fer- 
dinando on his previous voyage. 

Sir Humjjhrey had been in his ocean grave ten 
years w^hen Richard Strong made the voyage to 
Cape Breton, searching the coast for seal, by which 
he attained some familiarity with the contour of the 
Maine shores, its bays, rivers, and inlets, and possibly 
made his way up the Penobscot, though he does not 
mention that river particulai-ly. He does, however, 
say that he saw people whom he "judged to be Chris- 
tians'' sailing boats to the southwest of Cape Breton. 
Such was not an unconunon sight from that time 
down, as subsequent English navigators make men- 
tion of the same ha})penings, which, to them, were 
matters of surprise. Shallops with sails were in use 
on the coast of Maine, and the natives understood 
their management. Such was Gosnold's experience 



52 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

off the shores of York, where the shallop was of Basque 
make and the Indians made him a chalk-sketch of the 
coast. It is likely that many a voyage of which no rec- 
ord is to be had was made to this new country ; but 
to Gosnold has been credited the taking of the di- 
rect route, in which Verrazzano had certainly, and 
Walker had possibly, preceded him. It meant a 
shortening of the voyage by a thousand miles. Gos- 
nold did not touch at the Penobscot, for his first land- 







fall was about Casco Bay, to sail down across Massa- 
chusetts Bay, and from Cuttyhunk he shaped his 
course straight to South Hampton. Bring, 1603, 
sailed the same course as Gosnold; and it remained 
for a Frenchman, Pierre du Guast (Sieur de Monts), 
and his annalist, Samuel de Champlain, to afford 
some definite knowledge of the Penobscot waters. 
This expedition of the French was not a trading ex- 
pedition, but behind it lay the definite purpose of 
colonization. The French had been attracted to 
Norumbega by the relations that had floated over 
from England, and perhaps the inclination had been 
strengthened by the cargo of furs brought into one of 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



53 



their ports by Walker. Making their landfall east of 
Cape Sable, they skirted the coast to the St. Croix, up 
which river they kept their way, to drop anchor oppo- 
site Calais, pitching their camp on an island to which 
they gave the name of St. Croix. 

De Monts was, however, not the first Frenchman to 
come over to these strange shores of Xonimbega, for 







Jean Alfonce, a pilot of Roberval's, was here in 1542, 
and he left the memoranda of his discoveries, from 
which, in 1559, De St. Gelais wrote his " Voyages Aven- 
tureux d' Alfonce Xaintongeois," which has the story 
of a southward coasting expedition to '' une haye 
jusques par les 42 degres, entre la Xoromhegue et la 
Flenride." This was the expedition of 1543, when he 
returned to France with Cartier. Roberval, like all 
navigators of the time, was ever in search of a North- 
west Passage. This was Alfonce's errand. The coun- 



54 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

try he saw to the southward he beheved to be Asia. 
Hakhiyt mentions this voyage across Massachusetts 
Bay, and Alfonce has l^een declared to be the discov- 
erer of that wide expanse of water. It is a curious 
coincidence that Alfonce and Champlain came from 
the same Pyrenean province. The new world at that 
time did not attract much attention in France, and 
it has been said that Frenchmen had little, if any, 
knowledge of the credulities of Hakluyt, or the more 
curious work of Purchas. A history of France was 
issued at Amsterdam in 1720 under the auspices of 
the Jesuits, and written by Father Daniel, in which a 
single mention of the settlements of New France is 
made. One finds there the names of Cartier, Rober- 
val, Champlain, and that is all ; although over a hun- 
dred years had elapsed since the founding of Port 
Royal, and a full century had gone since the estalj- 
lishment of the Jesuit missions at Montreal, along the 
Chaudiere, and amid the Norridgewock wilderness in 
Maine. It was not for lack of space, for the work was 
comprised in six huge volumes. It is possibly charge- 
able to lack of data, which suggests ignorance. 

The Gulf of Maine is one of the four great gulfs on 
the east coast of North America. On the north is the 
great hammer-head of Nova Scotia, while on the 
south is the crooked out-reaching arm of Cape Cod. 
The history of the early discoveries may be said to 
have begun with this broad sheet of water, undigni- 
fied by a name until the Spanish navigators desig- 
nated it as the " Arcipelago de Tramontana " (North- 
ern Archipelago), to afterward distinguish it by the 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTIX 55 

name of its fii-st oxploror. Gomez. It was known to 
the ancient Freneli fishermen as the " Sea of Norum- 
begua," and the name attached to the country that 
stretched the length of its indented shores. The Eng- 
lish who colonized the Massachusetts shores after 
their fashion gave to it the name of ''Massachusetts 
Bay," but the United States Coast Survey charts it as 
the "Gulf of Maine." Cape Sable and Capv Cod are its 
great door-posts, two hundred and thirty miles from 
lintel to lintel, within which base line, one hundred 
and twenty miles landward, are the strings of em- 
erald islands that hug the sinuous coast-line from 
Passamafiuoddy to Cape Ann, which have l)een trans- 
formetl into the incomparable summer resorts of the 
western continent. It was the "bohia baya" of the 
Spanish, and the " Lo Bayo Francoise" of the French 
at its northern extremity, now known as the Bay of 
Fundy, and Kohl describes its configuration as " very 
much like the figure of a colossal turnip with a broad 
head, a small body, and two thin roots." 

To the reader it is the "Sea of Xorumbega." Off 
against these fog-ridden waters lay the mystic coun- 
try, ragged with imiumeraljle lieatUands, spits, reefs, 
somnolent creeks and inlets, and wide rivers, flanked 
by innumerable islands that stretch from the St. Croix 
to the southern headland of Casco Bay, snooded with 
verdurous woods, or bare under the lashings of the 
sea. They give to the Maine coast its alto-rilievo char- 
acteristics: and here at the mouth of the Penobscot, 
the most striking bay of all in its wide approach, are 
the same isles which Gomez saw and to which he gave 



56 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



the name " baya fer?nosa' (beautiful bay). It was 
rightly named, and its deep waters, its easy approach, 
its sheltered situations, its clustered islets from Edge- 
moggin Reach and Burnt Coat on the east to St. 
George's on the west entitled it to the suggestive 
"Rio Grande,'' "Rio hermoso/' of the Spanish ex- 
plorer, which later became the " Rio de Gomez." Here 
was the water-way which appeared on the most an- 




"^?fL/?fa;cFT^ 



cient maps as the largest river on this then strange 
coast, — the canoe-trail of the Indians as they went 
to or from the city of fabulous beauties, which 
may not have been far from the little fort settlement 
of the French which Thevet saw, and which was there 
prior to 1555. Thevet's veracity has been doubted, 
but his description is clear and such as a traveller to 
many and strange countries would be likely to make. 
He says: ''Having left La Florida (the entire coast 
south of the Gulf of Maine) on the left hand, with all 
its islands, gulfs, and capes, a river presents itself, 
which is one of the finest rivers in the whole world. 



THE LAXD OF ST. CAST IN 57 

which wc call ' Noriinibegue/ and the aborigines, 
' Agoncy,' and which is marked on some marine maps 
as the Grand River (Rio Grande, — Penobscot Bay). 
Several other beautiful rivers enter into it; and upon 
its banks the French formerly erected a little fort 
about ten or twelve leagues from its mouth, and 
which was surrounded by fresh water, and this place 
was named the Fort of Norumbegue. 

"Some pilots would make me believe, that this 
country (Norumbegue) is the proper country of Can- 
ada. But I told them that this was far from the truth, 
since this country lies in 4.3° N., and that of Canada 
in 50 or 52°. Before you enter the said river appears 
an island (Fox Island) surrounded by eight very small 
islets, which are near the country of the green moun- 
tains (Camden Hills, possibly) and to the Cape of the 
islets (the cabo de muchas islat^ of the earlier maps). 
From there you sail all along unto the mouth of the 
river, which is dangerous from the great number of 
thick and high rocks; and its entrance is wonderfully 
large. About three leagues into the river, an island 
presents itself to you, that may have four leagues in 
circumference (Islesboro), inhabited only by some 
fishermen and birds of different .sorts, which island 
they call ' Aiayascon,' because it has the form of a 
man's arm, which they call so. Its greatest length is 
from north to south. It would be very easy to plant 
on this i.sland, and build a fortress on it to keep in 
check the whole surrounding country. 

" Having landed and put our feet on the adjacent 
country, we perceived a great mass of people com- 



58 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

ing down ui)on us from all sides in such numbers, 
that you might have supposed them to have been a 
flight of starlings. . . . And all this people was 
clothed in skins of wild animals, which they call 
'Rabatatz.' Now considering their aspect and man- 
ner of proceeding, we mistrusted them, and went on 
board our vessel. But they, perceiving our fear, 
lifted their hands into the air, making signs that we 
should not mistrust them; and for making us still 
more sure, they sent to our vessel some of their 
principal men, which brought us provisions. In 
recompense of this, we gave them a few trinkets 
of a low price, by which they were highly pleased. 

" The next morning I, with some others, was com- 
missioned to meet them, and to know whether they 
would be inclined to assist us with more victuals, of 
which we were very much in need. But having en- 
tered into the house, w^hich they call 'Canociue,' of 
a certain little king of theirs, which called himself 
'Peramich,' we saw several killed animals hanging 
on the beams of the said house, w^hich he had pre- 
pared (as he assured us) to send to us. This chief gave 
us a very hearty welcome, and to show us his affec- 
tion, he ordered to kindle a fire, which they call 
'Azista,' on which the meat was to be put and fish, 
to be roasted. Upon this, some rogues came in to 
bring to the king the heads of six men which they had 
taken in war and massacre, w^hich terrified us, fear- 
ing that they might treat us in the same w^ay. But 
toward evening we secretly retired to our ship with- 
out bidding good-bye to our host. At this he was very 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IX 59 

much irritated, and came to us the next morning ac- 
companied by three of his children, showing a mourn- 
ful countenance, because he thought we had been 
dissatisfied witii him; and he said in his language: 




uRAND MANAN 



'Cazigno, Cazigno Casnouy danga addagriu' (Let 
us go, let us go on land, my friend and brother) ; 
'Coaquoca Ame Couascon Kazaconny ' (come to drink 
and to eat, what we have); 'Area somioppach Quen- 
chia dangua ysmay assomaka' (we assure you upon 
oath by heaven, earth, moon, and stars, that you 
shall not fare worse than our own persons). 



60 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

" Seeing the good affection and will of this old man, 
some twenty of us went again on land, and every one 
of us with his arms; and then we went to his lodgings, 
where we were treated, and presented with what he 
possessed. And meanwhUe great numbers of people 
arrived, caressing us and offering themselves to give 
us pleasure, saying that they were our friends. Late 
in the evening, when we were willing to retire and to 
take leave of the company with actions of gratitude, 
they would not give us leave. Men, women, children, 
all entreated us zealously to stay with them, crying 
out these words: 'Cazigno agnyda hoa' (my friends 
do not start from here ; you shall sleep this night with 
us). But they could not harrangue so well as to per- 
suade us to sleep with them. And so we retired to our 
vessel; and having remained in this place five full 
days, we WTighed anchor, parting from them with a 
marvellous contentment of both sides, and went out 
to the open sea." 

Kohl accepts this relation and classes it with that 
of Gomez and Ribero, 1525 and 1529, respectively. 
What strikes one as most important in this story of 
a visit to the River of Norumbega is the placing here 
of a fort and a settlement of the French before 1556. 
If the statement is to be believed, here then, upon 
the upper tide-waters of the Penobscot, instead of 
upon the little island off Calais, was the first Euro- 
pean foothold. It may have been a summer station 
for those who came into the Penobscot to fish, and 
the fort nothing more than a barrier of palisadoes 
of the rudest character; but were it nothing more 



THE LAND OF ST. CA;STIX 61 

than these, a few huts and a slender wall of defense 
for only temporary use, the fact is of value, as estab- 
lishing a greater familiarity with these waters than 
has heretofore been accorded them. 

Gomez is credited with having explored the Pe- 
nobscot very minutely, and he is thought to have 
given it the name of "Deer River" by reason of the 
abundance of the deer he saw here. 

Kohl makes the Xorse Thorwald the earliest nav- 
igator of the Gulf of Maine, followed later down this 
olden coast in their search for the humble crosses 
that marked the grave of the adventurer by Thor- 
finn and Gudrida, the beginning of the thread of the 
romance that has ever since held these serrated shores 
within its silken thrall. Its sj)inning begun with the 
wild Norse sagas of Thorwakls battle with the Skrel- 
lings (aborigines), where Thorwald got an arrow un- 
der his arm and his death-blow, and the wooing of 
his widow, the fair-haired Gudrida, by Thorfinn, 
whose strange honeymoon was a far pilgrimage to 
V'inland and the crosses Gudrida knew would be 
placed at the head of his grave, which the annalists 
say might have been upon any one of the headlands 
from the Piscataqua to the Charles; for this first con- 
flict with the savages is supposed to have taken place 
not far from the southern boundary of Maine. 

Like a spider dropping from the ceiling beyond 
one's reach, so lengthens out the thread upon which 
saga after saga, romance after romance, and tradi- 
tion upon tradition is suspended; of which, perhaps 
that of the El Dorado of the Penobscot is the most 



62 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



fascinating and elusive, but which is certainly lo- 
cated on the beautiful map made by order of Francis 
I. for the dauphin, afterward Henry II. If no one 
ever saw it elsewhere, here it is, to be sure, its castel- 
lated towers showing fair against the landscape. The 




ON THE PENOBSCOT RIVER 



mysterious city is revealed 

again upon Mercator's Map, 

1569. 

It is in 1524 that one gets 

his first glimpse of the No- 
rumbega coast — in fact, it is the first description of 
the coast at all. For that reason it is worthy of a place 
here, though one must needs take it second-hand, as 
it is a translation of a letter in Ramusio, as re- 
corded by Hakluyt in his "Voyages." The original 
was from the hand of the Florentine Giovanni da 
Verrazzano, who sailed from Brittany in the Dauphine, 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTIN G3 

provisioned for an eight months' cruise. He had 
turned the Shipnose of the Norsemen (Cape Cod), 
and he writes: 

"Trending afterwards to the north, we found 
another hmd. high, full of thicke woods, the trees 
there of firri's, cipresses and such like as are wont to 
grow in cold Countreys. The people differ much from 
the other, and looke how much the former seemed to 
be curteous and gentle, so much were these full of 
rudenesse anel ill manners, and so barbarous, that by 
no signes that ever we could make would we have 
any kind of traffic with them. They cloth themselves 
with ]-ieares skinnes and Luzernes and Scales and 
other beastes skinnes. Their food, as farre as we 
could pcrceve, reparing often to their dwellings, we 
suppose to be by hunting and fishing, and of certaine 
fruits, which are a kind of roots, which the earth 
yeeldeth of her own accord. They have no graine, 
neither saw we any kind of signe of tillage, neither is 
the land, for the barrenesse thereof, apt to bcare fruit 
or seed. 

" If at any time we desired by exchange to have 
any of their commodities, they used to come to the 
seashore upon certaine craggy rocks, and we stand- 
ing in our boats, they let down with a ro|)e what it 
pleased them to give us, crying continually that we 
should not approaache to the land, demanding im- 
mediately the exchange, taking nothing but knives, 
fishhookes, and tooles to cut withall, neither did they 
make any account of our courtesie. And when we 
had nothing left to exchange with them, when we 



64 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



departed from them, the people showed all signes of 
discourtesie and disdaine, as were possible for any 
creature to invent. We were in despight of them 
two or three leagues within the land, being in num- 







^%^ 



bertwenty-five armed 
men of us. And when 
we went on shore 
they shot at us with 
their bowes, making 
great outcries, and 
afterwards fled to 
the woods. 
" We found not in this land anything notable or of 
importance saving very great woods and certaine 
hills; they may have some mineral matter in them, 
because we saw many of them have headstones of 
Copper hanging at their eares. We departed from 
thence, keeping our course north-east along the coast, 
which WT found more pleasandt champion and with- 
out woods, with high mountains within the land." 
[These were undoubtedly the White Mountains, often 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIX 65 

observed by the ancient navigators on the Gulf of 
Maine between the 8aco River and Monhegan.] " Con- 
tinuing directly along the coast for the space of fifty 
leagues, we discovered thirty-two islands, lying all 
neere the land, being small and pleasant to the view, 
high, and having many turnings and windings be- 
tweene them, making many fair harl)oroughs and 
channels as they do in the gulfe of \'enice, in Sclavo- 
nia and Dal mat ia. We had no knowledge or acquaint- 
ance with the i)e()i)le: we suppose they are of the 
suTue manners and nature as the others are. Sayling 
Xorth-east for the space of one hundred and fiftie 
leagues, we approached the land that in times jiast 
was discovered by the Britons, which is in fiftie de- 
grees. Having now spent all our provisions and vic- 
tuals, and having discovered about seven hundred 
leagues and more of new C'ountreys, and being fur- 
nished with water and wootl, we concluded to retui'ue 
into France." 

It is evident from ^'errazzano that these savages 
along the coast of the Gulf of Maine had some ac- 
fiuaintance with the European barter, for that was 
all the commerce possible; for he says, while the sav- 
ages of the south did " not care at all for steeleor yron 
tools," those at the north would have nothing " but 
knives, fish-hooks and whatever would cut.' It is 
probable that the navigators here before ^'errazzano 
had made kidnapping incursions into the country, 
which is sufficient reason for their hostility. 

After all, this story of \'errazzano's may be, of ro- 
mance, 

"the purest ray serene," 



66 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



if Mr. Murphy's contention is to be accepted, for lie 
declares the identity of Verrazzano with Juan Florin, 
the pirate, to be well established; and this teapot 
tempest has all arisen over "A mightie large olde 
mappe in parchemente, made as yt shoulde seme 
by Verarsanus. . . . nowe in the custodie of Mr. 
Michael Locke." It seems to be a case of 

" Who shall deoide, when doctors disagree, 
And .soundest casuists doubt, like j'ou and me?" 




TROSSACHS OF CAMDEN 



Be that as it may, whether ^"errazzano ever looked 
upon the rare beauty of the picture spread out from 
Quoddy Head to the Piscataqua, topped by the glis- 
tening peaks of New Hampshire's White Hills, or, 
crossing the Bay of the Penobscot, looked out upon 
the Trossachs of the Camden country, may be in 
doubt; but all this glorious gallery of Nature's choic- 
est works, painted with the pigments of a New Eng- 
land autumn, and every one hung ''to the line," w^as 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTIX 67 

hero when Dii Monts and Champlain sailed down as 
far as Monhcgan in tiie Indian Summer of 1604. As 
one looks out over the wildness of the shore as the 
morning sun breaks full on jjictured 

"wave and rock. 
Bathed in the autumnal sunshine, stirred 
At intervals by breeze aiul bird. 
And wearing all the hues which glow 
In heaven's own pure and perfect bow, 

That glorious picture of the air. 
Which summer's light-robeil .ingel forms 
On the ilark ground of fading storms. 

With pencil dipped in sunbeams there," 

one is lookino; with Champlain's vision. These were 
all here in his day. .Matinicus lies off the mouth of 
the hay to take the brunt of the fireat l)lue .sea, while 
landward .slumix-rs an ('([ually interminable wilder- 
ness where the rounded hills lift their untlulating 
verdinc. to fade away into a horizon as deeply blue 
as the furthest marge of the ocean; while, along the 
shores of the great river, the sun droj)s down on the 
crowtled leaves, 

"Each colored like a topaz gem; 
And the tall maple wears with them 
The coronal which the autumn gives," 

as far as the eye can linui the wide and unshorn river's 
brim; and drowsing in the hazy halo 

"Penobscot's clustered wipvams lay, 

And gently from that Indian town 

The verdant hillside slopes adown 

To where the sparkling waters play 

Upon the yellow .sands below; 



68 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



And shooting round the winding shores 
Of narrow capes and isles which He 
Skimbering to ocean's lullaby, 

With birchen boat and glancing oars, 
The red men to their fishing go; " 



but as yet no golden towers catch the mellow 
shafts of sunlight from the blue bow of the sky, — no 
ruddy domes upheld by crystal pilasters break the 




ISLE AU HAUT 



vert of the heaving rims of the woods. But toward 
the sunset land 

"A thousand wooded islantis lie. — " 

that l3urn and glow, 

"Touched by the pencil of the frost, 

And, with the motion of each breeze, 
A moment seen — a moment lost — 
Changing and blent, confused and tossed. 
The brighter with the darker crossed. 

Their thousand tints of beauty glow 

Down in the restless waves below, 
And tremble in the sunny skies. 

As if, from waving bough to bough, 
Flitted the birds of paradise." 



THE LAXD OF ST. CAST IN 69 

It needed but the gleaming roofs of the mythic city 
which Ingram saw in his dreams, as the roar of old 
Panawanskek filled his ears after that long weari- 
some journey from the wilds of the far south, the 
Lost City of Xorumbega, that, like Cartier's Indian 
Hochekuja, was so invisiljle to the eyes of Champlain 
he was unable to find even its ancient site; as if some 
savage magician and his Slave of the Lamp had, in a 
single night, transported its barbaric magnificence to 
the Islands of the Seven Cities, or perhaps to the 
more remote and mythic Land of the Himini. Once, 
a Land of Enchantment, no longer 

"The witch-grass round the hazel spring 
May sharply to the night-air sing; 
Hut there no more shall withered hags 
Refresh at ease their broom-stick nags, 
Or taste those hazel-shadowed waters; " 

but had one looked into famous Boar's Head in East- 
cheaj), of an evening, one would have very likely met 
Ingram, whose tankard, foaming-full at his elbow, 
was all the inspiration needed: and had one listened 
to the magic tale tripped from a limber tongue, 
and drip])ing with all the dyes of the rainbow, to 
wash it down witii a i)ot of good red ale, one's doubts 
would have Hown up the chimney; for those were 
tlays of prodigies, when even Shakspere was a horse- 
boy at the new Drury Lane Theatre. 

The low ceiling of the Boar's Head is suggestive of 
confidential chats and mysterious hints of secret 
things, and in its time it was a famous place. Shak- 
spere locates its ancientness as of the days of Henry 



70 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

lY. It was biinu'cl in the Great Fire of London, and 
was rebuilt, only to be removed years later, when it 
was found to be in the way of those approaching Lon- 
don Bridge. A statue of William R". now adorns the 
site of the old hostelry, once the scene of many a 
wild carrousal, from old Sir John FalstafT, 7ie Sir 
John Oldcastle, down to the days when David In- 
gram sought its reeky atmosphere, its brown ale, 
and its famous traditions. 

The fog has choked Eastcheap with its smother- 
ing damp and drizzle, and here or there the blinking 
torch of the link-boy flares like a will-o'-the-wisp. 
Huge shadows dance up and down, or grow and lessen 
upon the opaque wall of the stagnant vapor. Across 
the narrow street lays a bar of light, and above it 
swings a cumbersome sign from its Flemish-wrought 
iron crane. In the dim light one makes out the 
bristly head of the boar, and near by is the gate to 
the tavern yard. On the street gable is the wide 
French window with its latticed ])anes, dripping with 
wet outside, while within they are smudged, like the 
oaken rafters and the wainscoted walls, with the reek 
of two centuries. Flanked by huge red jambs, the 
fire smolders on the ample hearth, and over the 
sanded floor the little tables and the heavy stools are 
thronged with roysterers who eat or drink between 
their quips and jests, knight and swashbuckler ban- 
dying oaths in turn, while the landlord, red-faced, 
rotund, and smug, watches the lad at the spit, or 
serves a turn at the ale-casks, where they 

"Sit on their ale-bench with their cups and cans," 



THE LAM) OF ST. CAST IX 71 

SO many silent memorials to the holy clerk of Cop- 
manhurst. 

Ingram is here, carrousing with the rest, and he 
can tell the wildest tale of all. Ingram is the lion of 
the old ale-house, who tak(>s his cue as easily as if 
to the manor horn, and his lii)s make pictures as they 
move. Alc-nicllowcd, his voice has the sound of the 
tides that lapped the wonderful .shores he has so 
lately visited; and as he relates the marvels of the 
far-away city of the Bashaba, all ears are intent, and 
hang upon his words, that like nimble servitors at 
his eli)ow wait. No longer does he dote upon his 
weary toiling along the beaten sands: the .story of the 
golden city best chai'ins tiic motley hour. 

"You must know," said Ingram, "that the coun- 
try wherein lies this marvellous city, Xorombega, is 
a country of great rivers and many of them, and many 
great falls of water that fill the land with great roar- 
ings, and in them are many great hshesof divers colors, 
red, blue, green and black, which are very tooth.some 
and easy to take. There are many and abundant 
great trees as tall as several of the tallest masts on 
the Thames put together, great firrs, pines, cipresses, 
and many sweet-odored woods with much sassafras 
and (livers other sweet roots which are very sustain- 
ing and which the people there, devour in great quan- 
tities. There are dye-woods of cochineal antl indigoes 
with which the peoi)le paint themselves when they go 
out to war, for they have an exj)ert use of the bow 
and arrow as good as was ever shot in Sherwood for- 
est by Little John or Allan a Dale. As for the red 



72 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

deer, there were never so many in all England as I 
have seen in a single day's travel in that land, where 
there are lions, great bears with coats as black as 
sloes, and as shining as the sun, and I counted not a 
few elephants, a single tusk being more than a man 
might lift, out of the smaller of which they make 




MT. KATAHDIN 



their trumpets. It is a country adjoining Cathay on 
the south, where I found a marvellously mild and 
sweet climate, and where, wlien the night came I 
slept under palms so broadly-leaved that a single 
branch would make a thatch for one side of a house- 
roof. There was gold to be picked up with the sands 
of the sea by which I, for many days made my way, 
but I had to leave it, having not the wherewithal to 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 73 

carry it; and there were great stores of silver and 
copper in the rocks to be had for the digging. I found 
pieces of gold in the rivers big as a man's fist, and 
fine pearls in some of these, which I gathered, but 
which I threw from me as I tired of carrying them. 
So abundant were the riches of that strange land, 
and so used to the seeing of such did I become that I 
thought no more of them than you do of the dirt 
under your feet. 

"After I had travelled many days, passing many 
and great cities, I left the land of the palms to come 
into a different country where were the numerous 
rivers and the marvellously tall and thick trees, and 
where there were great hills, until I came to a high land 
wlicre I could see a great distance. As I turned to the 
northwest I saw upon the horizon what appeared to 
be a mountain of solid silver. In the opposite direc- 
tion I could see the sea which was as full of islands as 
you could get peas in a skillet. I thought to go to 
the mountain of silver, but all at once I heard a 
great outcry among some animals which I took to be 
wolves, whereby I made haste for the sea shore and 
jjlunging in, I soon made an island where I found 
some fine grapes, and where I rested for that day 
and a night. 

"From that I followed the shore to the eastward, 
counting many great and thickly wooded islands, in 
the which time I forded many streams until I came to 
a place where I found some people of the country, 
a great many there were, who had gathered to feast 
on a strange fish which they call qua-hog, and where 



74 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

there were great heaps of shells. I made some con- 
versation with them by signs, pointing to the east- 
ward as the direction I was going, whereupon they 
signified to me that there were many wide and dee}) 
streams in my way. They were very friendly and in- 
formed me that they had seen a ship going toward the 
Sim, a little before; but they gave me to eat and some 
soft furs to rest myself upon, after which I found 
myself greatly refreshed, and able to go on my jour- 
ney, which I was about to do, but they restrained 
me by their entreaties, so that I remained with them. 
They cooked their fish by heating some stone piles 
with great fires, after which they drew the coals and 
brands to heap the hot stones with the fish which 
had shells about them, covering them with sea-weed. 
After they had cooked a while, the heaps were un- 
covered, after which they fell to eating with great 
appetites until nothing but the shells were left. This 
feasting was kept up for some days, after which they 
took to their canoas taking me along. They calleti 
the place Saccadahock, and which was on the shore 
of a river which had many mouths. They were a 
comely people I)ut for their skins, which were of a 
copper color. The young women were handsome and 
graceful, and so much were they taken with me that 
I was offered one of the prettiest wenches to wife 
would I consent to live with them. They were finely 
dressed in soft skins, and were very tUgnifi(>d in their 
manner. They told me that their king, the l^ashaba, 
lived to the eastward in a great city, and pointing to 
the gold ornaments in their ears, they told me the 




OLD MAID AND SEA GULL CLIFF, SOUTHERN HEAD 
GRAND MANAN 



77/ A' I.AXl) OF ST. CAST IX 75 

houses were roofed over with the same metal. Thev 
wore strings of great pearls about their neeks of whieli 
they seemed to have little account as they said the 
rivers abountled in them. There were several chief 
men in the party whom they called Saganios, one of 
whom lived near to the city of their king, who of- 
fered to take me there, to which I gladly consented. 
Taking me into his canoa, we i)addled across east- 
ward from the place he called SaJtitto to a peninsula 
which he called Pcmcuit. and where we rested over 
that night. When the morning broke I saw not far 
to seaward a great island that was backed like a 
whale. I first took it for a whale, as those fish in that 
country are easily taken for islands at a distance, s(j 
high do their backs rear out the sea, and so enormous 
are they that one would load a hundred ships. The 
Sagamo said it was an island and that the people who 
lived on it were subjects of the liashaba. 

"It was a fine day, and the waters of the sea were ' 
like glass, and the canoas made direct for a great 
island to the eastward. The canoas weiv drawn up on 
the shore that was made by a little cove, and a fire 
was built by rubbing briars together rudely in their 
hands. A fish was spitted and cooked: and but for 
the coals and the ashes with which it was smutched, 
it proved excellent fare. The weather holding fair, 
and the sea being smooth, the canoas were got into 
the water, and by sundown we had got to the mouth 
of the great river, the which, the Sagamo called Pana- 
wamske. Here the canoas were |)ulle(l uj) out of the 
way of the tide, for it was low watei- when we made 



76 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

land, and our supper was made off the remains of the 
fish which we had on the isLand. 

''A fire was made as before, and guided by its 
light, the other of the Sagamo's people came who had 
followed on behind, until all w^ere gathered about the 
fire, which was very comfortable as the wind had 
risen and was blowing in freshly from seaward. The 
fire was very cheerful, and the people sat around it 
in a circle, the men smoking very handsome stone 
pipes, one of which was given me, wherewith I sol- 
aced myself to my perfect contentment. There was 
no conversation carried on, but one strange thing I 
noticed the next morning; all were up betimes, and, 
as the sun came up, they all turned to the east and 
ducked their heads in that direction, soberly, by which 
I gathered that they had some sort of a religion. They 
have a devil they call Collochio, that appears as a 
black dog with the eyes of a calf. When they raked 
the ashes open wherein were great coals and the fire 
was renewed quickly. It was a time of the year when 
the salmon run in the river, and of which several were 
caught by the use of a long picked stick of spruce- 
wood with a fish-bone fastened to it by delicate 
thongs, and which fish I at once recognized as having 
seen occasionally in our London markets, but much 
larger. 

"A part of the forenoon was spent in waiting for 
the tide to turn so we might go up stream the more 
easily. When the tide had set in, we again took to 
the river, which was of great width at that place, 
and made a comfortable passage imtil the end of the 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIX 



77 



day, when, as the sun was going down, the Sagamo 
stopped the canoa to point silently to the roofs and 
towers of a city that flamed in the setting sun like 
another and a nearer sunset. As I looked, my eyes 
were dazzled with the unwonted splendors that 




ST. ANNS BAY, CAPE BRETON 



showed above the tops of the trees in that tlirection. 
W'v watched the sun go down, and long after it was 
out of sight and the dusk had come, those roofs and 
towers glowed like living coals. Then, when I had 
asked him what the city was called, he said,— 
' Arembec' I signified my desire to go to this marvel 
of cities at once, but the Sagamo shook his head, tell- 



78 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

ing mo that strangers were allowed within its walls 
only by the consent of the Bashaba to whom he 
would send a messenger as soon as we made the 
shore, which he did. We spent the night under the 
shadows of some great trees from which hung mighty 
lengths of gray mosses that were as soft as lace, the 
tops of which I could not see, and I could hardly 
sleep for the desire to see the city. 

" Wlien we had shaken off our sleep, and the Sagamo 
had bent his head several times toward the sunrise, 
he called the messenger who said the Bashaba would 
send an escort down the river to meet the stranger 
with the royal insignia, — the tail of a horse, — and 
that he should put himst^f into their hands, and des- 
ignated the place of the meeting of the canoas. With 
that, we went out upon the river again and paddled 
up the stream to a place where the river forked, where 
a fleet of gilded canoas awaited us, which were much 
larger than those I had seen at the place they called 
Saccadahock, and which were made of thin plates of 
beaten copper and ribbed , and curiously fastened, 
while our canoas were made of the bark of the birch 
sewed with the rootlets of the spruce and caulked 
with the pitch from the pines that I saw everywhere. 
In fact it seemed to be a country where there was 
much pine, more than of other woods. 

" I there left my Sagamo, to go with a salvage who 
waved a horse's tail in the air, nor did I see him again, 
as he at once turned away and went down the river 
to his peojjle who belonged in another part of the 
country. We passed u]3-stream swiftly and were soon 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIX 79 

in sight of the walls of Aivmbcc. As we turned to 
the shore I noted a wide flight of stone steps, both 
sides of which were lined with warriors whose faces 
were painted red and yellow, and every one of whom 
held a supj)le how in his hand while a quiver of ar- 
rows showed over the shoulder. On their heads was 
a curious dress of long colored feathers which came 
down behind to their heels and around their waists 
were curious garments of fine furs. I at first took 
them to be statues, so immovable did they stand, but 
I discovered my mistake: for as soon as I landed on 
the first step, the two nearest ai3proached me and 
lifting me from my feet, carried me gently to the top- 
most stair where they placed me upon my feet again. 
As we came uj) the stone stairs those warriors who 
had lined the way fell in behind like a trooj) of sol- 
diers, and so we went uj) a wide strei't which was laid 
with some curious stone the like of which I never l)e- 
fore saw, which was as smooth as glass, and shone in 
the sun as white as the sun itself. I noted the houses 
as we went, for the walls were of some white smooth 
cement of diff(>ring heights and their roofs seemed to 
be some of silver, and some of copper, while the en- 
trances to some were of marvellous beauty as is not 
excelled by the j)alace of good (^ueen Bess, being 
cased with j)ure crystal, antl hooded with beaten sil- 
ver with doors of burnished copper with raised mould- 
ings of silver. Copper there seemed to be in great 
abundance, for they used it for the lattice-work of 
their windows of which the panes were very small, 
ami seemed not to be of glass, l)ut of a transparent 



80 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



stone which some call isinglass. We kept to our 
walk until as I afterward observed, we were half way 
across the city, which is three-fourths of a mile wide 
along this street. Here, in the center of the city is 
the palace of the Bashaba, the king of all other kings 




INDIAN BEACH, GRAND MANAN 



among these races, in the midst of a spacious park or 
common, where were all hardwood trees, such as the 
oak, maple and the beech. From the main street to the 
palace ran a wide avenue like what leads the way to 
some of our English castles; and it was at its end as 
we turned into it that I beheld the most wonderful 
sight, the Bashaba's palace. I was most astonished 
at its size, the roof to which, on its ends and front, 
were upheld by twelve great pillars, round and of 
polished silver, with capitals of gold wrought into 
very curious design. The great entrance was fash- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 81 

ioned like a great gate, and of solid crystal inlaid with 
precious stones which were unlike anything I had 
ever before seen, and which I thought to be lapis- 
lazuli. but which were of a green sort instead of blue 
and more to be desired. The great doors were of solid 
gold, and as we approached they opened though I 
saw no one near them. Within, was a mighty hall in 
the center of which was a fountain of strange stone, 
more to be desired than marble, where waters of 
divers colors came out. The lining of the fountain 
was gold, and its rim was encrusted with jewels that 
would make my Lord of the Exchecquer go mad, for 
I never thought of the like, so much did they flash 
and glisten; but the greater wonder was to come when 
I turned to look at the easterly gable where the 
Hashaba sat on his throne stutlded with fine pearls, 
and canopied with strings of great pearls, something 
like a fish-net, with a i)earl for every knot. As I was 
being conducted to the king I had some chance to 
see him, but instead of a crown, he wore a head-dress 
of very long eagle's feathers, dyed in the most bril- 
liant colors, and in the center of the ribband by 
which they were held in place, was a diamontl half 
the size of a man's fist, that was so dazzling that one 
might take it for a coal of fire. I was taken to the 
foot of the throne and made to kneel, when I crawled 
to the king's feet which I kissed, whereupon I arose 
and had some converse with him. 

"The king asked me wherefore I had come into his 
land, as to which I informed him, but he knew all 
that had transpired since my arrivaJ at Saccadahock. 



82 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 



It was of matters before that, aiitl whence I had come. 
I made him understand me very well, so that he stood 
up and asked me to come nearer, when he gave me 
his hand, to tell me that I was welcome to stay as 
long as I pleased, and that he would provide me with 
a lodge and tsooes, that is, a woman, a bow and some 




OLDEST HOUSE ON PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND 



arrows. He told me that he was king of the Abenake 
tribes, and that I was in the land of Norombega, and 
the name of the place where the city lay was Kades- 
(juit, but that the city was the capital and was every- 
where among all the tril)es known as Arembec. I told 
him I had never liefore seen so magnificent a })alace, 
whereupon he told me it was very old, having been 
built hundreds of moons before he was born. I asked 
him where he got so much gold, but he was discreetly 
silent as to that. He told me the pillars that upheld 
the roofs and their towers represented the twelve 
months of the year, and that the pillar for the pres- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIX §3 

ont month was Assehaskivat.s (tlicre is ice on the bor- 
ders,) and whieli corresponds to our October. 

" After that he led me around the great hall whose 
walls were lined with the finest gold to the ceiling, 
which was of silver. On the walls were hung the skins 
of fine furs and there were painted on them, with some 
curious pigment of various colors, what he said were 
thctotemsof thenumcrous tribes over which hereigned 
some of which were familiar to me, of which I remem- 
ber a turtle, an eagle, a snake, and some others there 
were, but which have escaped me. On the floor, 
which was seemingly of fine stones, set in mosaic, 
were great rugs of moose, bear, otter and niartyn 
skins, into which, as I walked, my feet seemed to sink 
to the ankle, and the like of which I never before im- 
agined, and with which the Bashaba told me the woods 
and streams abounded, and were to be hatl with small 
exertion. Then he clapped his hands and a salvage 
brought to us a silver pot with two heavy gold gob- 
lets, all of which were ui^held ujjon a sizable trencher 
of massy gold, and after pouring the goblets to the 
brim, he gave me one, and uj)on tasting, I found it to 
be an unfermented wine which was very sweet and 
palatable to the tongue, and by which I was much 
refreshed. It was a pledge of his friendship to me, by 
which I was much relieved in my mind as to his pur- 
poses, and upon which, he dismissed me, signifying I 
was soon to come anil see him. He was very dignified, 
and never for the once smiled. Going to the side of 
the great hall, he parted some heavy. skins, and I was 
led the way I came to the main street which we still 



84 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

followed as it ran away from the river, until, finally 
we stopped before a house which I understood was for 
the king's guests, the entrance to which was rich and 
massy in fine metals. Upon entering, I found the 
room ample and hung with tapestries of exceeding 
fine furs, the floor being covered with the same so 
that our feet made not the slightest sound. The upper 
part was reached by a rude stairway of polished cedar, 
which suggested to me that these people were not so 
expert in the use of woods as of metals. At their top 
I found another room much like that below, with 
abundance of furs whereon I was to sleep, and it was 
then that my escort left me to my own conceit. As 
I had eaten nothing through the day I began to feel 
some need of food, and upon going below again, I was 
much surprised to see a pretty wench who had brought 
me in a platter of fish and venison, along with a pot 
of wine. After I had eaten and she had taken the dish 
away, which I noticed was of pure gold, she again re- 
turned with a suit of clothes made of softly-dressed 
skins of the deer and minded me of a fine chamois, 
and which she signified was to take the place of the 
tattered garb which I had kept about me on my 
journey from that place where we were marooned. 
For buttons, there were fine thongs of tanned deer- 
skin which the wench showed herself very handy 
about, after which she told me she was my tsooes, 
which was the salvage for woman, and would tend 
my fire and which they make of a white turf that 
smells like musk. 

"I found my leather clothes and the moccasins 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 85 

very comfortable. I assure you I made a very good 
salvage, for my face had been tanned by the weather 
to the color of good copper, so that the Bashaba, 
when he saw me, was mightily pleased to caU me his 
brother. I went about the city much as I pleased, 
and I came upon some of their carpenters, who, much 
to my amaze, had axes and chisels of metal and which 
were thinned to a good edge, at the which I looked, to 
find them made of hardened copper, and to carry a 
very good sharpness. I noted that the habits of these 
people were very simple, withal, they were of staid 
demeanor, and very hospitable, and had many wives, 
— sometimes ten, and sometimes a hundred. They 
were great observers of small things, and they have a 
very keen vision so that by a wrinkle in the grass or 
a crease in a leaf in the woods, they can discover the 
passage of others, their number, and as well the direc- 
tion of their going. When they put their ears to the 
ground they can hear steps far away, and their noses 
are as sharp as a fo.x's. They count their time by 
moons and the length of their journeys by sleeps, and 
they make a sun-ilial of the shadows; and they can 
make their way through the woods in the darkest 
night by placing their hands on the rind of a tree, for 
they note some difference between that side toward 
the south, or the north. I found them as well able to 
foretell the weather and as certainly as an English 
skipper, and they begin their months on the liew 
moon. Their new year begins when the nights are 
longest, or from the longest moon. Our December is 
the month of their long moon which they call Ketch- 



86 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

ikizoos. One thing I noted, which was that the tsooes 
did all the work, while all the warriors were much on 
the hunt, or after furs. I saw as many fine furs as 
would lade all the ships of the Thames, and Dart- 
mouth and Bristol, besides. Their grain is as big as a 
man's fist. All the salvages wore rings of gold in their 
ears, and strings of pearls about their necks, while 
some of them had their hair, which is very long and 
black, hooped with gold bands. Gold was more com- 
mon with these people than lead is with us, and in al- 
most every house was a bucket of pearls. I was much 
inclined to stay with them longer but hearing that a 
canoa with white wings had been seen to the east- 
ward, I signified to the Bashaba that I must go to my 
home over the sea. He embraced me, and with a 
promise that I would come again, he set me on my 
way to the St. John River, with a guide, whereat I 
found a French ship in which I made my way to 
France, and thence across the Channel to the Boar's 
Head where I have tried to interest divers adventu- 
rers to make the voyage to this marvellous city of 
Norombega." 

The fortunes of Ingram and his companions are 
colored with all the romance and fascinating terrors 
of the tales of days when piracy was rife along the 
Carribean reefs from Great to Little Tobago Islands; 
and one cannot forbear recalling for a moment their 
relations, if for no more than a taste of the waters 
that in boyhood days, and somewhat before the ad- 
vent of Oliver Optic, made up the sum of a winter 
evening's pleasure, with only the light of the huge 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 87 

open fire to illiimino the grewsome exploits of Captain 
Kidd aiul his {)iratieal forebears. 
■ Ingram was of Barking, Essex, and in his career, 
■which one can imagine to have been a checkered one 
for the times, found himself a-ship with Hawkins, who 
was renowned for his piracies and slave-trading. Haw- 
kins' coat of arms was crested with the half-length 
figure of a negro child bound with cords, — a fitting 
escutcheon for a man of his villainous trade. Haw- 
kins' career had taken him into the harbor of St. 
John d'Ulloa, where he was attacked by the Span- 
iards, who destroyed four of his fleet; but he managed 
to get away with his two remaining vessels, to take 
shelter within the mouth of the Tampico River on the 
Mexican Gulf coast. Here he surveyed the ruins of 
his fleet to find himself with a plethora of sailors and 
a straitened larder. In order to reach l']iigland alive 
he must dispose of a part of his crew, which he did 
by putting half of his sailors ashore. One of these. 
Miles Phillips, who reached p]ngland safely, in a rela- 
tion which Hakluyt has recorded, says, quaintly: 

" For the more contentation of all men's Mindes, 
and to take away occasion of offense, to take this 
order: First hee made choyce of suche persons of serv- 
ice and accovmt as were needefull to stay, and that 
being done, of those that were willing to go hee ap- 
jiointed suche as hee thought might be best spared, 
and presently appointed that by the boate they 
should be set on shoare. . . . Here, agayne it would 
have caused any stony heart to have relented to hearr 
the pitifull mone that many did make, and how lothe 



88 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

they were to depart ; the weather was then somewhat 
stormey and tempestuous, and therefore we were to 
passe with greate danger, yet notwithstanding theere 
was no remedy, but that we that were appointed to 
go away, must of necessitie doe so. 

"Howbeit those that went in the first boate were 
safely set ashoare, but of them that went in the sec- 
ond boate, of which number I was one, the seas 
wrought soe high that we could not attayne to the 
shoare, and therefore we were constrained through 
the cruel dealing of John Hampton, Captain of the 
Minion, and John Saunders, boatswain of the Jesus, 
and Thomas Pollard, his mate, to leape out of the 
boate into the Maine sea, having more than a mile to 
shoare, and soe to shift for ourselves, and either to 
sink or to swimme." 

One would hardly expect other treatment from a 
hardened crew whose brutish instincts were so well 
cultivated by the slave trader Hawkins, whose 
vaunted exploits as a colleague of the famous English 
sea-dog Drake had, after all this brutality, found 
place in English story. Hawkins made the port of 
London January 20, 1568, after a very favorable run 
home. 

There is a narrative by Job Hortrop, an English- 
man of Hawkins' crew, who was not heard of for 
many years. It is a strange and unreal story, and is 
curiously entitled, ''THE RARE Trauailes of lob 
Hortrop, an Englishman who was not heard of in 
three and twentie years space. Wherein is declared 
the dangers he escaped in his voiage to Gynnie, when 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 89 

he was set on shoare in a wilderness neere to Panico 
(Pamlico,) he endured much slaveric and bondage in 
a 'Spanish Galley. Wherein also hee discoureth many 
strange and wondorfull things scene in the time of his 
trauaile, as well concerning wild and sauage people, 
as also of sundrie monstrous beares, fishes, foules, and 
also Trees of wonderfull forme and qualitie." 

This narrative was issued from the ancient press of 
WUliam Wright, 1691. Hortrop's story shows a ray 
of humanity on the part of Hawkins when he writes 
that Hawkins "was constrained to divide his com- 
panie through an extremitie of hunger . . . where- 
upon our Generall set on shoare of our company, 
four-score and sixteen; and gave unto everv one of 
us five yardes of Roan cloth, and monie to tfiose that 
did demand it. Then he louingly embraced us greatly 
lamenting our distressed state, and having persuaded 
us to serue God, and love one another, he bade us all 
farewell.'' 

The marooned sailors slept for that night beside 
the Pamlico; and the next morning, which was Octo- 
ber 8, 1667, they set out l)lindly, to follow the west- 
ward trend of the coast. They" had not gone far be- 
fore a band of savages swooped down upon them. 
Tiiey were weaf)onless. undoubtedly a precaution 
taken l)y Hawkins for his own safety. With weapons 
and ammunition they would have been on e(iual 
terms with the more fortunate half of the crew, and 
in their desperation would not unlikely have attacked 
the ships. They were an easy |)rey for the Indians. 
Eight were killed, and the romainder were robbed 



90 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



of their slender possessions, after which they were 
allowed to go. The savages pointed out to them the 
direction of Pamlico, the Spanish settlement, some 
ten leagues distant. Not a few demurred to accept- 
ing the Spanish hospitality. Phillips continues his 
narration : " We thought it best to divide ourselves 
into two companies, and so being separated, halfe of 




TROSSACHS OF CAMDEN 



us went under the leading of Anthony Goddard, who 
is a man yet alive, and dwelleth this instant in the 
town of Plimouth, whom before we chose to be cap- 
taine over us all, and those which went under his 
leading, of which number, I Miles Phillips, was one, 
trauelled Westword that way which the Indians with 
their hands had pointed us to go. The other halfe 
went under the leading of John Hooper, whome him, 
David Ingraham was one, and they took their way 
and trauailed Northword, and shortly after, within a 
space of two days, they were againe incountered with 
sauage peojile, and their Captaine and two more of 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 91 

his companic were slainc: then againe they diuided 
themselves, and some hekl on their way Northword, 
and other some, knowing that we were gone West- 
word, sought to meete us againe. As in truth there 
was about the number of hue and twentie or six and 
twentie of them that mette with us in the space of 
three or four days againe, and then we began to reckon 
amongst oursehies how many we were that were set 
on shoare, and we found the number to be an hundred 
& fourteen, whereof two were drownded in the sea, 
and eight were shiine at the first incounter, so there 
remained an hundred and foure, of which fine and 
twentie went Westword with us, and two and fifty to 
the North with Hooper and Ingraham: and as In- 
graham hath often tolde me, there were not past three 
of their companie shiine, antl there were but fine and 
twentie of them that came againe to us; so that of the 
companie that went Westword, there is yet lacking, 
and not certainly heard of, the number of three and 
twentie men." 

Hawkins says, "Such as were willing to land, I 
put them apart." According to Hortrop, his com- 
pany slept on the sands where they were marooned 
the first night. As the day broke, they began their 
almost hopeless march across the semi-trojiical coun- 
try, only to encounter a band of hostile savages who 
levied tribute upon them, which included a portion of 
their ''cloth and their shirtes." Finding the English 
so easy a prey, the savages increased their demands; 
but being met with some resistance, one of their num- 
ber " was presently slaine with an arrow by an Indian 



92 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

boy : but for so doing, the Indian Captaine smote the 
boy with his bow in the necke, that he lay for dead, 
and willed us to follow him, which we did." 

This party, hoping to save something of their chat- 
tels by so doing, divided itself into halves and started 
anew for the Pamlico, but only to be again set upon 
by another band of savages. Hortrop says these 
last " left us naked as wee were born of our mothers." 
Eight more were killed, and it is supposed that the 
remainder of the crew got to the Spanish settlement 
safely. 

As a whole, Hortrop's story is a romance, and the 
hardships which were his lot were various and almost 
incredible. He was sold into slavery by the Span- 
iards, and he did not get back to England until twenty 
years after, a broken old man, whose recollection of 
the slave-trading voyages of Hawkins was ever col- 
ored by the Nemesis of an avenging spirit. One sees 
him start in his sleep, smarting under the whip of his 
taskmaster, and hears him crying out — only to find 
it all a terrifying dream, and, while the chill perspira- 
tion dries upon his face, he sleeps again, his brain re- 
peopled with the weird phantasmagoria that begins 
with the slave-decks of Hawkins, to run down through 
the years of his own bondage. 

In the year 1582 Ingram was subpoenaed by the 
English Government to describe the countries through 
which he had passed in his " trauailes," and the man- 
uscript is still to be seen in English State Paper Office. 
It is an incredible tale, but Sir Humphrey Gilbert was 
sufficiently credulous, so that it accelerated his prep- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 93 

arations for the voyage which to him was so unfor- 
tunate. If one has a curious turn, Ingram's deposi- 
tion may be found in the first volume of "The Ameri- 
can Magazine of History," as translated by the eminent 
antiquarian, De Costa. In his testimony before Wal- 
singham, " He traueiled by land two thousand miles 
at least. . . . After long travell, the aforesaid David 
Ingram, with his companions, Browne and Twid, 
came to the head of a River called Gugida, which is 
sixty leagues west from Cape Britton," where he 
found Captain Champaigne. It was a notable jour- 
ney, and its actuality is not to be doubted. His story 
is to be traced to a diseased imagination, the imagin- 
ings of a superstitious sailor. There is some truth in 
the tale, but it is confined to his footprints across an 
unfamiliar and unexplored wilderness; to long and 
tedious, and, as well, perilous wanderings in a strange 
country among a rude and inhosjiitable people, a 
cruel and savage race. The wonder of it all is that 
he arrived at St. John's River at all ; and the romance 
of it all is the color he gives to the relation. He cites 
Coronado — and if one recalls the fables of Cibola, in 
that the houses had "pillars of silver and crystal;"' 
that every house had " coupes and buckets and divers 
other vessels of massie silver, wherewith they do 
throw out water and dust;" w^here the streets were 
"farre broader than any street in London," one may 
believe Ingram to have been acquainted with those 
selfsame fables. 

He saw the firefly, which he describes as "fire- 
dragons (the mouches of Lescarbot), which make the 



94 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

air very red as they fly." One finds this in Ingram's 
sworn statement: "The Kings in those Cuntries 
are clothed with painted or Coulored garments & 
therebie ye maie knowe them, & thei weare great 
precious stones which commonly are rubies, being 
VI (4) ynches long & 2 ynches broad, and yf the same 
be taken from them eyther by force or fight, thei are 
presentlie deprived of their Kingdomes. 

''All the people generallie do weare manillions or 
bracelets as big as a mannes fynger uppon eche of their 
amies, and the like on the small of eche of their legge, 
whereof commonly one ys golde & two silver, and 
manie of the women alsoe doe weare greate plate of 
golde covering ther bodies in manner of a paier of 
Curette (Cuirass) & manie braceletts & chains of 
greate perle." 

It was a tale to arouse the cupidity of the most 
unimpressionable — a tale suitably embellished, and 
which ranked him as one of the Munchausens of his 
time. If it did not, it was not because he had not 
practised at the tune whose harmonies became so 
seductive to his wonder-struck audiences at the various 
London taverns he was wont to frequent. His tale of 
marvels, seen and imagined, was bruited far and wide. 
It crossed the channel to tickle the ears of the French, 
whose ears were ever to the ground to catch whatever 
might entertain, then as now. Then they began to 
cast their eyes to the westward to this El Dorado, 
and schemes of colonization began to ferment, until, 
in 1604, De Monts sailed away, with Champlain and 
Poutrincourt to keep him in good face. He sighted 



THE LAM) OF ST. CAST IN 



95 



Cape Sable on May 1st of that year. The latter part 
of that month they has passed within the headlands 
of Passamaquoddy Bay to sail up the St. Croix. A 
little within the coast-line they dropped anchor un- 
der the lee of two small islands, to the larger of which 




NORTHERN HEAD, GRAND MANAN 



Dc Monts <i;;i\'e the Maine of ■" Holy Cross Island," since 
when the i-ivei' has i)een known as the St. Croix. 
De Monts' object was colonization and discovery, 
and the work of buiklinii; the ni'W city was at once 
undertaken. By the end of August matters were so 
well advanced that Poutrincourt turned his i)row out- 
ward and filled his sails for sunny France. He was to 
return, however, the following s])ring, for he had a 
scheme of colonization of his own. and he had found 



96 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

the country up coast in the region of Canceau fair to 
look upon; but he had pitched upon Port Royal as 
the better place for the planting of a colony. 

On September 2d De Monts, with Champlain as 
his annalist and chart-maker, along with seventeen 
sailors, set out in a pattache (a small vessel of less than 
twenty tons) to make a survey of the coast to the 
south and westward, and to locate more particularly 
the great river whose waters were said to reflect the 
towers of the fabled city, and which was reputed to 
be of great extent, of marvellous beauty, and numer- 
ously peopled by a race possessed of exceeding skill, 
and who were manufacturers of cotton. The nights 
of the 5th and 6th they anchored off Uisles des 
Monts-deserts, and it was here they discovered the 
first sign of human occupancy on the voyage, — a 
column of smoke spun its subtle thread skyward from 
the tops of the wooded shore, toward which they 
made their way. Here they met some of the natives, 
to whom they made some slight gifts, and who in return 
offered their guidance to the savage city of Peimte- 
gouet, where the Bessabez had his seat of power. 

He went up the stream to the confluence of the 
Kenduskeag, and Champlain says of his voyage up 
the ancient Norumbega (Abbe Lavardiere is of the 
opinion that the River of Norumbega is identical with 
the Bay of Fundy), ''As one enters the river, there 
are beautiful islands, which are very pleasant and 
contain fine meadows." Following the birch canoes 
of the savages, they came to a little river (Kendus- 
keag), near which they had to anchor by reason of the 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 97 

many rocks at low tide. " The fall is some two hun- 
dred paces broad. . . . The river is beautiful," and 
finding himself in the ample opening of the Pool, he 
makes a mental survey of its attractions. He notes 
the wooded banks of the river, and makes note that 
"The oaks here appear as if they were planted for 
ornament.'' His mind is, however, alert to catch the 
glimmering of metalled roofs, for he says right here: 
" It is related also that there is a large thickly-settled 
town of savages, who are adroit and skillful, and who 
manufacture cotton yarn.'' But it is with something 
of disappointment that he feels compelled to say: 
" From the entrance to where we went we saw no town, 
nor village, nor the appearance of there having been 
one; but one or two cabins of the savages without in- 
habitants, . . . covered with the bark of trees." 

He says of the occupation of the savages, that they 
were agriculturalists. "They made trenches in the 
sand on the slope of the hills, some five or six feet 
deep, more or less. Putting their corn and other grain 
into large grass sacks, they throw them into these 
trenches, and cover them with sand three or four 
feet above the surface of the earth, taking it out as 
their needs recjuire. In this way it is preserved as. 
well as it woukl l)e jjossible to do in our graneries." 
The early settler undoubtedly constructed his first 
rudely old-fashioned New England vegetable cellar, 
before the days of the substantial cellar under the 
dwelling, upon this aboriginal plan, where he safely 
kept his store of fruits and vegetables from the in- 
clemency of the frost. One not infrequently stumbles 



98 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

upon one of these stoned-up holes in the ground, and 
usually not far from some hollow beside which the 
ancient highway ran, and where was once the humble 
roof of the pioneer of the wilderness. 

The strangers were well received by the savages. 
Champlain relates under the 16th of the month that 
thirty savages came the next day, the Bessabez with 
six canoes. They sat down and altogether indulged in 
a c^uiet smoke, as was their fashion before the speech- 
making began. Their speeches were of the most 
friendly disposition. Then came the festivities. 
"They did nothing but dance and sing and make 
merry" through the night and until day broke, when 
the Bessabez took to his canoes and paddled away. 
The people were " very swarthy dressed in beaver- 
skins and other furs." One feels, in reading Cham- 
plain, that the account is meagre, and that one w^ould 
have better liked his relation of his "Voyages" if he 
had been less the geographer and more the narrator. 
It is surprising that one finds so little of the descrip- 
tive, when one recalls his artistic and romantic tem- 
perament that everywhere shines out in his pages as 
the stars shine out in the twilight sky, — one here and 
another there, softly luminous and i)rophetic of the 
glory of the night that is soon to fall. 

He is silent as regards his search for the fabled city, 
as if he were reluctant to be numbered as one of those 
caught in its delusive mesh. He says, "There are 
none of the marvels there which some persons have 
described;" and with this he disposed of the Ingram 
fable. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIX 



99 



There has been connected with this voyage of Cham- 
plain up the Penobscot, and his explorations amid the 
wilderness of the Tarratines and the Bashaba, the 
finding of an "old and mossy cross/' out of which 
rune has been wrought beautiful pictures; but in his 




My 

ALONGSHORE, ISLE AU HAUT 

relation of this visit to the Kenduskoag he says noth- 
ing of such— one iias to relegate it to the traditions of 
the time. It is the slender thread upon which one may 
string the colored beads of romance. One finds it in 
his "\'oyages" as a footnote, but upon what au- 
thority is not given. One would have preferred to 
have discovered it in the text. 



100 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

It is a sad but charming tale, this story of the Nor- 
man knight and his henchman threading the deeps of 
the dusky woods, with the song of the Penobscot ever 
in his weary ears ; scanning from the hilltops, wherever 
there was a break in the foliage, the wide horizon, for 
a glimpse of the glittering spires of the Lost City. It 
is a hopeless search, a tiresome quest, and as the days 
go by he tires of the ever-limitless sea of woodland 
tops, before, behind, and all about. His brain is 
thronged with lively fancies, so that in the notes of 
the birds that sing at dusk he hears the soft, sweet 
tones of the vesper bell. But the thrush sings on, and 
the knight listens to the silvery notes that fly from 
tree to tree ; and as the sun goes down, he has visions 
of far Normandy. The vine-clad slopes glow with the 
beauty of the vintage-days. There is merry laughter 
as the maids he once knew trip down the street of 
the olden village; kindly faces look out upon him, 
and the gray druids of the forest drop apart. The 
mountains he once knew so well are painted with the 
wondrous gilding of the sky. Down drops the wester- 
ing sun, and a blaze of splendor lights the heavens, 
flaming against the spires of the hemlocks and the 
mast-like pines that hedge him in, so that they are 
become the domes and minarets of Nature's most 
marvellous creation; while at his feet the insect life 
awakes, from which rise sounds of chants and litanies ; 
but there is no tower or hall — only the stark rinds 
of the huge tree-trunks that make up the interminable 
forest, moss-scutcheoned, and lichen-painted. 

It is a weary journey, but he is nearer the golden 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 101 

city than he knows. Here upon a mossy root he 
breathes the healing of the resined pine, but it has 
no heahng for him. He rests his head against the 
rough boll as one would put one's ear to the lips of 
the Sphinx, or mayhap to close his vision to the ter- 
rors of the silent spectres that throng the twilight- 
shadowed aisles of the crowding woods; and then he 
sees, as men see. Once more, the human vision : 

" He sought the shadowed aisles again, — 
The city was not there. 
He saw no gleam of earth-born lights. 
Or clustered towers in air." 

Look as he might, only 

"The pines stood black against the moon, 
A sword of fire beyond ; 
He heard the wolf howl, and the loon 
Laugh in his reedy pond." 

Then came the Vision of the Soul, and the 

" Urbs Syon Mystica, — conilita caelo " 

was revealed to him, whose .softest airs were tremu- 
lous with the ineffable chorus of the choir angelic. He 
had found the long-sought city. 

Three years after Champlain's coming to the Pe- 
nobscot, Wytfliet writes, the romance of Ingrain still 
in mind: "Moreover towards the north is Xoruni- 
bega which is well-known by reason of a fair town 
and a great River, though it is not found from whence 
it has taken its name." Heylin, as late as 1669, in his 
"Cosmograj)hy," mentions Norumbega as a "fair 
city" which he thinks may have existed. 



102 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

Marc Lescarbot, in his lightsome way, writes: 
" If this beautiful town ever existed in Nature, I would 
like to know who pulled it down, for there is nothing 
but huts here made of pickets and covered with the 
barks of trees, or with skins." And this was the seig- 
nory of Roberval, the patentee of Norumbega. 

But Champlain had settled the matter for himself 
in the fall of 1604. Champlain's explorations made, 
with De Monts, he left it as much a myth as ever. 

" The winding way the serpent takes 
The mystic water took. 
From where, to count its beaded lakes, 
The forest sped its brook, 

"A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore. 
For sun and stars to fall, 
While ever more, behind, before. 
Closed in the forest wall," 

they swept along, the stream flecked with the red 
autumn leaves, between the wide marge of ever- 
widening shores, keeping the trend of the outflowing 
tide, sweeping into the bosom of the sea like a ship 
that has just left her ways. Once in the bay, they set 
their course toward Monhegan, in the neighborhood 
of which they began the retracing of their voyage, to 
make the Island of the Holy Cross in mid-October. 
Champlain had spent a month or more in his explora- 
tion of the shores of the Penobscot many leagues in- 
land, being amply repaid in all things except his 
discovery of the mythic Norumbega. The marvellous 
city had disappeared utterly. It had gone the way 
of ancient Hochelaga. It was a fable — a dream to dis- 



THE LAM) OF ST. CASTIN 



103 



solve with one's waking. His search was diligent, 
and his enquiries unavailing. Like Lescarbot, he 
found only a few niiseralilc huts oi- wigwams of the 
Tarratine, whose chief bore no distinguishing mark 
other than his title. He was the Bessabez, to l)e sure, 
but without his palace. The gold rings in the savage 
cars had gone to the melting-pot, else they were never 




^._ 






IS\iCW 



there. Ingram's stone stej)s had fallen into the stream, 
or had l)een swept away by the ice-gorges that every 
winter gnaw at the river-banks. The wide streets had 
grown up to the full stature of the woodland, and the 
habitations of a lordly race of men had been annihi- 
lated, else Xorumbega hatl never existed. It was, how- 
ever, here he found the f()()ti)riiits of one of his race, 
the single sign of civilization. 
Where 

"The henchman duji at dawn a grave 
Beneath the hemlocks l)n)\vn " 

was no mystery to Champlain, for amid this wilder- 
ness of moss-festooned hemlocks he had found 

"The cross-boughed tree that marked the spot 
And made it Holy ground," 



104 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



and that was all. Of all the tales of roofs and towers of 
gold, only this remained — 

" The Norman's nameless grave — " 

to show the way. Here was a second Patmos; and to 
Champlain's prophetic vision the mystery of life and 
death, mayhap, was here revealed. 




ST. CROIX 








ST. CROIX 



)ECADE and a half l)('foro Captain 
Jones and the Maylioicer made 
riymouth ever memorable by his 
connivance with the Dutch, or, in 
other words, before he had set 
his cargo of Pilgrims ashore to 
wonder what untoward fate 
had left them on the gray sands 
of Cape Cod, the ships of De 
Monts and Poutrincourt swung 
around the nose of Cape Sable 
to cut across the Bay of Fundy into the Basin of 
Passamaquoddy, and thence to make the mouth of 
the river that there found its outlet to the sea. 

It was an adventure whose object was the coloniza- 
tion of the neighboring country. The annalist of the 
expedition was k^amuel de Champlain, who came from 
Brouage in Saintonge, the date of whose birth was the 

107 




108 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

year 1567, so he must have been in the vigor of 
manhood when he made his scrutiny of the strange 
coasts that broke upon his vision as he followed their 
contour, their indents of bay, inlet, and creek, in De 
Monts' little pattache of less than twenty tons' burden. 
Champlain had a good nose for the work, and the 
keenness of his observation is well supported by a 
chart, notable for its accuracy of coast-line and its 
evidences of cartographic skill, published by Jean 
Berjon, whose shop in those days was in the Rue St. 
Jean Beauvais, Paris; or to be more exact, in the year 
1613. Champlain had made his explorations of 1603- 
07 and 1609, which were later followed by the story 
of his voyages, which were the first narratives in de- 
tail of special value. His ''Des Sauvages" appeared 
in 1603, and his ''Voyages" in 1613, 1619, and 1632, 
which contained the story of his explorations that 
made his name famous. His ancestors were Basque 
fishermen. He had naturally the disposition for ad- 
venture, which led him into the service of the French 
Marine in which, as an officer, he served with distinc- 
tion. His excellent parts commended him to his King, 
who showed a kindly appreciation of his worth, and 
issued to him a patent of nobility. He was in the army 
in Brittany. To this was added an experience of three 
years' service in the West Indies and Mexico. This 
knowledge of the New World but whetted his eager- 
ness to engage in new ventures. He had the French 
aptness for detail, was keenly observant, and something 
of an adept with the pencil in the outlining of various 
objects which came under his notice. In 1603 he was 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 109 

threading the St. Lawrence with De Pont-Grave, and 
tlie following year, with a commission from the King 
as the Royal Geographer, he made the voyage with 
De Monts to the region of the St. Croix, where he 
spent the three succeeding years making close scrutiny 
of the entire coast-line of the Gulf of Maine, which he 
charted with remarkable accuracy, making special 
charts of the rivers and the larger harbors. This 
work was supplemented by a minute description of 
the physical features of the immediate country, its 
peoples and their modes of living, their habits, dress, 
and customs. He was one of the most important men 
of his time, and yet the American historian has had 
so little to say of him and his work as to be a matter 
of surprise to the student whose investigations lead 
him in the direction of the earliest explorations of his 
country. Gosnold was not an explorer, but rather an 
adventurer in search of sassafras and such commodity 
as would lade his ship. Pring came over, but hi:^ voy- 
age was of little importance to the English public, 
Weymouth did better, but his survey was of an en- 
tirely local character, and the annals of his voyage at 
the hands of Rosier were so obscure as to be of little 
value. Not one of them made a chart, or so much as 
lighted a rush-light to show the way. They did kid- 
nap a few ])oor Indians in the so-called interest of 
spreading the English civilization, for which selfish 
act the English settler later paid roundly. Even the 
wizard, Parkman, has so little to say of Champlain's 
great accomplishment from Passamaquoddy to Cape 
Malabarre as to be especially exasperating to one who 



no 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



seeks for information. Ciiamplain's labors, performed 
under arduous and often perilous circumstances, 
marked the border-line sharply between the fanciful 
tales of Ingram, the vague imaginings and superficial 
observations of Gosnold and Pring, the misleading 
narrative of Rosier, and the realities of the rugged 
headlands, the down-rushing rivers, and the main har- 




OLD WHARF, PASSAMAQUODDY BAY 



bors of the New England coast. No disparagement is 
meant toward the English navigator; but until Cap- 
tain John Smith the English voyages were peculiarly 
barren, barring Weymouth's 1605, of accurate detail. 
The coming of Champlain ended the mythical cen- 
tury. 

Since Verrazzano, this part of the New World had 
been regarded as the peculiar heritage of France, and 
under French domination. Some attempted occu- 
pancy had been made by the Portuguese off the north- 



THE LAXD OF ST. CAST IX HI 

east coast of Canada upon an island upon which cattle 
were found by subsequent explorers and navigators, 
and as early as 1540 Jean Fran(,ois de Roberval of 
Picardy was made viceroy of Canada. De la Roche 
made an abortive attempt at colonization in 1584. 
Another colony was attempted in 1598, but the sever- 
ity of the climate was not to be withstood, and the 
adventurers went back to France, and the New World 
seignory of Roberval was what it had ever been,— 
a land of obscure traditions, of dreams and fables. 

The accession of Henry lY. brought with it a new 
spirit of adventure, anil in 1603 Pierre de Guast, ??ieur 
de Monts, was made Lieutenant-General of Acadia, 
whose powers were extended to the latitude of the 
present city of Philadelphia. It was a vast domain, a 
vastness little comprehended by Henry. The expedi- 
tion was carefully planned, the needs and the possible 
requirements of the embryo colony as carefully j)r()- 
vided for, and the De Monts adventurers were well 
selected for their ac(iuaintanc(' with the arts which 
would be needful to the success of the enterprise. 
The expedition sailed away from Havre de Grace on 
the 7th day of April, the ship being in charge of Cap- 
tain Timothee. With it went M. Ralleau, secretary, 
and the Royal Geograi)her, Chaniplain. Three days 
later another ship, sailed by Cai)tain Morel, of Hon- 
fleur, left with Sieur de I'ont-Grave and the remainder 
of the colony. The ships were to rendezvous at Can- 
ceau. De Monts, well out to sea, changed his course, 
to sight Cape Sable on the 1st of May. Seven days 
later he was at Cape la Heve, and on the 12th he made 



112 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

the harbor of the present Liverpool, which he chris- 
tened ''Port Rossignol," 

Champlain says in the opening Hnes of his Voyage 
of the year 1604: 

"The inclinations of men differ according to their 
varied dispositions: and each one in his calling has 
some particular end in view. Some aim at gain. Some 
at glory. Some at the public weal. The greater num- 
ber are engaged in trade, and especially that which is 
transacted on the sea. Hence arise the principal sup- 
port of the people, the opulence and honor of States." 

Here is the key-note of Champlain's motive in sail- 
ing away from France to enter upon what was like to 
be a hazardous undertaking, but from which success- 
ful outcome he was aware important results to his 
government would be derived. The ''public weal" 
was a spur to his ambitions, and he alludes to the nu- 
merous efforts of navigators from the days of the 
Cabots to the attempted settlement of Sable Island in 
1598 by the Marquis de la Roche. 

He says, " Notwithstanding all these accidents and 
disappointments, Sieur de Monts desired to attempt 
TVhat had been given up in despair, and requested a 
commission for this purpose of his Majesty." 

Sable Island was sighted on May 1st, and upon 
which the ship of De Monts was very near being 
wrecked by reason of the miscalculation of the pilot. 
Here they were thirty leagues distant, north and 
south, from Cape Breton. They made some inspection 
of the island, upon which they found a considerable 
lake. It is here Champlain begins his photographic 




THE TROSSACHS OF CAMDEN 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 113 

detail, which is so evident from now on, as one follows 
his narrative. He describes Sable Island as "very 
sandy, and there are no trees at all of considerable 
size, only copse and herbage which serve as a pastur- 
age for the bullocks and cows, which the Portuguese 
carried there more than sixty years ago, and which 
were very serviceable to the party of the Marquis de 
la Roche." May 8th the De Monts Expedition sighted 
Cap de la Heve, and it was on the 12th that De Monts 
discovered Rossignol anticipating him in the coveted 
trade with the Indians at Liverpool Harbor. 

He gave the name of Port Rossignol to this haven, 
for the reason of his adventure with Captain Rossignol 
and his contraband transactions in furs with the sav- 
ages, which he considered an encroachment upon his 
privileges, and as well punished by a summary con- 
fiscation of Rossignol 's vessel and cargo. It was on 
the 13th he came to a final anchorage " at a very fine 
harbor where there were two little streams, called 
Port au Mouton," seven leagues from Port Rossignol. 
Pont-Grave had arrived at Canceau, and there he 
found several Bascjue vessels trading with the sav- 
ages. He possessed himself at once of these vessels, 
and sent the masters of them to De Monts for final 
disposition. De Monts sustained the action of Pont- 
Grave and despatched a vessel with the Basque 
skippers to Rochelle. At the same time Captain 
Fouques was sent to Canceau for supplies in the ship 
taken from Rossignol. Pont-Grave, having supplied 
Fouques with his lading, sailed away for the St. Law- 
rence River to lay in a cargo of furs and to carry on 



114 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



some trade with the Indians of that part of the coun- 
try. 

It was to be an active campaign, and the coast was 
to be thoroughly explored before the ground was 







S«Wc.'? 

4* Sa.^KM 






turned up for the permanent settlement of the De 
Monts Colony. The task was to be undertaken by 
Champlain, who got away immediately from Port au 
Mouton in a barque of eight tons, taking with him 
Ralleau, De Monts' secretary, and M. Simon, the min- 
eralogist of the expedition; also a force of ten men. 
They set out to the westward. 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN II5 

On May 19th Champlain notes that they entered 
a harbor, at the end of which he found a small river, 
extending into the mainland, and he gave it the name 
" Port of Cape Negro, from a rock whose distant view 
resembles a negro which rises out of the water." He 
found the shores ver>' low and heavily wooded and 
fringed with many islands abounding in much game. 
Spending the night within the shelter of Sable Bay, 
the next day they were at Cape Sable and Cormorant 
Island, where they gathered a cask full of cormorants' 
eggs. One can imagine the feast that followed, and 
can get a sniff of the smoke of the driftwood fire they 
lighted on the sands for the roasting of their lucky 
find. It was an appetizing feast, al fresco; and no 
doubt the French palate responded eagerly to the 
delicacy, after so long a surfeiting of ship's stores. 
They had the robust appetites that come only with 
the winds of the sea. 

They found the waters dotted with islands of em- 
erald, and there seemed to be a chain of them about 
two leagues from land. Here they found an abundance 
of wild fowl. On some of these the penguins were 
so many and so tame as to be approached and killed 
with sticks. Sea-wolves covered the shore, and these 
islands where the sea-wolves were so numerous Cham- 
plain named after them; and he says they spent " pleas- 
antly some time in hunting (and not without cap- 
turing much game)." The next land made was Port 
Forchu, a fork-shaped peninsula. It is evident he was 
plotting the coast as he went, and locating and identi- 
fying the indents and capes with such names as their 



116 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



peculiarities suggested. It must have been a leisurely 
progress they made, and a thoroughly enjoyable voy- 
aging, with so many pictures of sea and shore opening 







\p- 



ACADIA 




4 
f 



up as the prow of their little barque nosed its way 
along the yellow sands, or amid the reefs of seaweed- 
covered rock and the broken perspective of the island- 
strewn waters. He coasted the shore and doubled the 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 117 

headland of Cape Sable to enter the Bay of Fundy, 
where he found a long reach of curving, broken shore, 
with many little harbors from which the country un- 
dulated inland gently, or rose in isolated beetling 
bluffs to hang in dusky masses over the restless waters; 
and everywhere was the picturesque beauty of a 
primitive landscaj^e unfolding, always unfolding, as 
he sailed, new vistas of fascinating scenery, and above 
which hung the blue sky as softly beneficent as that of 
France. It was a delightful country, and possibly 
his eyes were the first from the Old World to look 
upon its bewildering charms. 

Continuing his voyage up the east shore of the bay, 
landing here or there, as curiosity prompted, scruti- 
nizing the soil, the timber, the openings for signs of 
human habitation, while M. Simon tapped the ledges 
with his hammer in search for minerals, he was as 
constantly making use of his pencil, sketching as he 
went. Champlain was desirous for the tliscovery of 
copper-mines, but only leads of silver and iron were 
found. These apparently existed in paying quantities; 
but there were no signs of copper. 

"WTierever the shores curved, Champlain's willing 
keel kept to the contour, until he had entered the Bay 
FranQoise, a beautiful sheet of water, and two leagues 
northeast of which M. Simon found a "very good 
silver mine.'' These silver-mines, speciously suggest- 
ive, were of no particular profit to the French, al- 
though some of tlie crude ore was taken to France 
for reduction. Nothing much came of it, or, at least, 
not much account was made of it. Champlain says, 



118 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

"Some leagues farther on, there is a little stream 
called River Boulay, where the tide rises half a league 
into the land." Near by this place M. Simon found 
traces of iron; and less than a quarter of a league 
away he found iron ore in quantity. He assured De 
Monts on his return that the ore would assay " 50 per 
cent good iron." Three leagues northwest they sailed, 
still following the shore trend, making land wherever 
any object of interest presented itself, to come into 
the mouth of another Acadian river " surrounded by 
beautiful and attractive meadows." To this river- 
mouth Champlain gave the name of St. Margaret's 
Harbor, the attractions of which must have been es- 
pecially seductive to have won from Champlain so fair 
a designation, for his eyes were apt; his appreciation, 
swift; and his adaptation, artistic. 

Elated with their successful prospectings, they 
turned the nose of their barque to the southward, and 
made Port au Mouton without mishap, where they re- 
ported to De Monts the results of their explorations. 
They had been away from Port au Mouton twenty- 
one days. 

It was a hearty greeting that awaited them as they 
came into the mouth of Port au Mouton Harbor out of 
the mist that came up over the waters of Cape Sable 
with the declining afternoon. De Monts had missed 
Champlain, and his active spirit had kept step to his 
pacing the deck of Captain Timothee's ship, or its 
vibrant straining at its cable as the tides lurched in or 
out. He was like a vessel chafing its sides against the 
wharf, for there was nothing for him to do but to keep 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



119 



to his rendezvous at Port au Mouton. They were the 
most tedious twenty-one days of his experience. He 
thought of the dangers by sea and land, many of 
which he had experienced himself at one time or 
another. Others he conjured out of his lively imagi- 
nation. He began to count the days of Champlain's 
absence more seriously, though the skies were fair and 
the winds were soft and low-voiced. 




ANNAPOLIS BAY, ROYAL 

Champlain was as eager to see his commander and 
to get the news of Morel and Pont-(}rave: and it was 
with youthful alacrity he mounted the rail of Captain 
Timothee's ship, his hand in tiiat of I)e Monts, whose 
f)leasure had com|)elled him to reach down to the 
voyager, as if to draw Champlain the cjuicker to him- 
self. The words came swiftly, and nothing was to be 
done until Champlain had told his story and shown 
his drawings, witli the location of the silver and iron 
mines. It had been a constant source of delight to 
Champlain. and he derived as much pleasure in telling 
De Monts how they had skirted the rugged shores of 
Cape Sable, hugging the east shore of the Bay of 
Fundy as far as the site of Annapolis; and the sport 



120 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

they had at Sea-Wolves Islands; how they knocked 
the penguins over with their clubs; and of the great 
feast of the cormorants' eggs at Sable Island. This 
was the 19th of May, and the next day Morel had 
come down fromCanceau, bringing Pont-Grave along; 
and the ships again were anchored side by side. 

The day after Morel's arrival, De Monts shifted his 
berth to Bay St. Mary, a fine harbor on the west shore 
of Nova Scotia. There he made preparations for an 
exploration over the course made by Champlain. He 
wished with his own eyes to see the wealth that lay 
bound up in the rocks along the shores to the west- 
ward. Leaving his ship here, he dropped into his 
shallop with a portion of his crew. Champlain and 
M. Simon were along as well; and pushing off, they 
up-sail to hold down the course according to Cham- 
plain's charts. They had a priest along with them 
(Nicholas Aubrey), who later found the wilderness of 
Nova Scotia to be hardly the streets of Paris. 

De Monts went into Annapolis harbor, which he 
found to be peculiarly attractive, and well-disposed 
for the founding of a colony, though it did not appeal 
to him at the time. Leaving this beautiful sheet of 
water, he skirted the west coast of Nova Scotia, touch- 
ing at the Bay of Mines, from whence he kept on to 
the place where M. Prevet had discovered copper- 
mines the year previous. He went on shore, as did 
Champlain on his former voyage over these waters, 
and it was on one of these occasions that the priest, 
whom Lescarbot describes "un certain homme d' 
Englise," lost his way in the woods. The party had 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



121 



been on shore, and the priest had inadvertently left 
his sword. Discovering his mishap, he turned back to 
get it, when he became so turned about that he could 
not find the ship, but kept a course directly away 
from it. The ship's crew fired cannon, muskets, and 
blew horns, making in the meantime a diligent search 




ri^-itMSHL. 



BASIN OF MINAS 

of the neighboring woods, but the priest was not to 
be found. For once the instinct of the savag(>s was at 
a loss; for they could discover no trace of Aiibn^v's 
footprints on the leaves, or other sign of the fellow. 
Their trained eyes, for Champlain says, "The sav- 
ages of those parts searched for the priest," were for 
the once no better than those of a blind man, and the 
quest was reluctantly given up. Aubrey wandered 
about the woods for seventeen days, eating the roots 
of the herbs that were most i)alatable, and the wild 
fruits, of which he says he found some that had the 



122 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

look of currants. At last he came out upon the sea- 
shore. It was the Bay of St. Frangoise, and there he 
saw De Monts' shallop, from which some of the sailors 
were fishing. Aubrey made an effort to halloo, but 
discovered that he had lost his voice somewhere in 
the forest, so he hoisted his hat upon the end of a pole, 
and waving it to and fro, at last attracted the atten- 
tion of those on the shallop. It was the expedition of 
De Champadore, who had come to the bay for a ship- 
load of silver ore, that brought salvation to the starv- 
ing priest. 

They went into Port Royal and made a thorough 
examination. It was preferable to St. Mary's Bay; 
but De Monts kept on to Bay Fran^oise to make 
further search for the copper-mine discovered the 
previous year by M. Prevert of St. Malo, but which 
was believed to be mere hearsay, he having had it 
from the savages who were from the country south 
of the Northumberland Straits; but which, Cham- 
plain says, had been found by Prevert. The copper- 
mine was not to be found. Following the shore of 
New Brunswick, he went down to the harbor of St. 
John. Then they sailed out to four islands, where they 
saw great flocks of magpies, many of which they cap- 
tured, and out of which they made pot-pies, which 
Champlain remarks " are as good as pigeons." Farther 
west was the bold outline of Manthane (Manan). 
Leaving the Magpie Islands behind, they set sail for 
the "River of the Etchemins," a tribe of savages so 
designated in that country. Here they saw so many 
islands they were unable to count them. All were bay- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTJN 123 

enclosed. They dotted the waters like so many huge 
emeralds, and it was hereabout the prow of their ves- 
sel first parted the waters of the Passamaquoddy Bay, 
which Champlain describes. 

"Sailing northwest three leagues through the 
islands, we entered a river almost half a league in 
breadth at its mouth, sailing up which, a league or 
two, we found two islands; one very small near the 
western bank; and the other in the middle, having a 
circumference of perhaps 8 or 9 hundred paces, with 
rocky sides three or four fathoms high all around, 
except in one small place, where there is a sandy point 
and clayey earth adapted for making brick and use- 
ful articles, 

"There is a place affording shelter for vessels from 
80 to 100 tons, but it is dry at low tide. The island is 
covered with firs, birches, maples and oaks. It is by 
Nature very well situated, except in one place, where 
for about forty paces it is lower than elsewhere; this, 
however, is easily fortified, the banks of the main 
land being distant on both sides some 900 to 1000 
paces. \'essels could pass up the river only at the 
mercy of the cannon on this island, and we deemed 
the location most advantageous, not only on account 
of its situation and good soil, but also on account of 
the intercourse which we propose with the savages of 
these coasts and of the interior, as we should be in 
the midst of them. We hoped to pacify them in the 
course of time, and put an end to the wars which they 
carry on with one another, so as to draw service from 
them in future, antl convert them to the Christian 



124 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

faith. This place was named by Sieur de Monts, the 
Island of St. Croix." 

To these mariners here was an ideal spot. The 
anchors went overboard and the permanent debark- 
ation at once began. Now known as De Mont's Island, 
it has been designated as ''Douchet's/' and as well 
*' Neutral Island." There is a light on the island which 




DOUCHET'S ISLAND, WHERE DE MONTS WINTERED 

is maintained by the government. It is moderately 
high in its situation, with pleasant outlooks, and an 
area of perhaps six or seven acres. It must have been 
somewhat larger when Captain Timothee dropped 
anchor here, for the erosion by the river current has 
been considerable. Cannon-balls have been dug out 
of its sward on its southern extremity, evidently the 
site where De Monts planted his heavy guns, and it 
may here be noted that they are the only memorials 
of the De Monts settlement of 1604-05. The little 
island is known as Chamcook Hill, and reaches the 
altitude of six hundred and twenty-seven feet, — 
a sightly summer spot. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 125 

St. Croix Island was at once considered the most 
suitable location, and no sooner were the men ashore 
than a barricade was commenced on a little inlet where 
a place was made for the cannon, and where they were 
mounted — one of the first things to be accomplished. 
The work was vigorously prosecuted, "although the 
mosquitoes, (which are little flies,) annoyed us exces- 
sively in our work, for there were several of our men 
whose faces were so swollen by their bites that they 
could scarcely see." 

^^^^en the barricade had been completed, De Monts 
sent his shallop to St. Mary's Harbor to notify the re- 
mainder of the party to sail immediately for St.Croix 
Island. The messenger despatched, the work of lay- 
ing out the colony began. First there was the line of 
the palisadoes to be established, within which was to 
be plotted the locations of the buildings necessary 
for the shelter of the colony, the workshops, a well, 
and the two great garden-plats. Champlain drew the 
plans and was the Olmsted of the important works to 
be projected. He says: 

" After Sieur de Monts had determined the j^lace for 
the store-house, . . . he adopted the {)lan for his own 
house which he had promptly built by good workmen, 
and then assigned to each his location." The men 
gathered by " fives and sixes," and " all set to work to 
clear up the island, to go to the wootls to make the 
frame-work, to carry the earth and other things nec- 
essary for the building." These people, running busily 
about the limited area of this island, are suggestive of 
so many ants going, coming, each upon its individual 



126 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



errand; and the air was vibrant witii the foreign 
sounds of axe, hammer, and saw. From this time 
to the coming of the snow the preparations went on 
without cessation, except when the laborers ate or 
slept. So the new Carthage grew. 

The work platted, and each appointed to his several 
labors. Captain Fouques was sent in the Rossignol 



^-^;S<^ . - 




ship to Canceau to find Font-Grave. This was fol- 
lowed by the advent up-stream of Du Glas of Hon- 
fieur, who was one of Pont-Grave's pilots, and who 
had in charge the Basque skippers caught in the Nova 
Scotia waters by Font-Grave. De Monts received 
them well, and sent them back to Font-Grave, who 
sent them after Rossignol ; that is, to Rochelle. This 
was' the first instance of an Admiralty Court proceed- 
ing on the coast, and the results were sufficiently 
drastic to the offenders ; for, with the exception of their 
dunnage, all else was confiscated. 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 127 

This affair off his hands, De Monts urged on the 
woriv still more vigorously. His ambitions were not 
to be hedged in by the pent-up Utica of St. Croix 
Island, for he had other and more important objects 
on hand. It was needful that he be assured, when he 
undertook his later project, that the work on the shel- 
ters should be so well along that he might be cer- 
tain of their completion of them by the time they 
would be most neetled. An oven for the bakery was 
built, and a hand-mill for the grinding of wheat was 
set up; for on the farther bank of the river excellent 
wheat-land had been found, which he proposed to 
sow in season. 

Leaving the work in charge of proper direction, De 
Monts went away in his shallop to .search for copjx'r- 
mines. He found a copper-mine not far away which 
M. Simon assayed at eighteen per cent. The savages 
had reported copper-mines, and Messaftwuet set out 
to guide De Monts to a mine which he described as of 
pure copper. Under the guidance of the savage, a 
considerable tract of wilderness was covered; but no 
mine could be found such as the Indian had described. 
Returning to the island disappointed, he sent all his 
vessels away to France, except that of Captain Tim- 
othee, an event which happened to fall on the last 
day of August. It was shortly after that that with 
Champlain he set out in quest of the fabled city of 
Norumbega, to make an exploration of the Penob- 
scot, and to sail out across the southern confines of 
the Bay of Penobscot to the hull-shaped island of 
Monhegan; accomplishing which, they" turned the 



128 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



prow of their barque toward the St. Croix River, where 
they arrived, after passing through some dangers 
incident to a broken rudder and a hard rub on a reef 
near the mouth of that river. 

It was mid-November when they had berthed their 
ship under the lee of the island. It was none too soon, 




OLD POWDER-HOUSE, EASTPORT 



for there had been snow on the 6th of October. There 
was a promise of winter's setting in early. De Monts 
had not looked for the snows so early, and the com- 
ing of the feathery crystals had prevented the entire 
completion of the buildings, though "some gardens" 
had been made by the men. Each man had cleared 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 129 

up his own premises before and behind his dwelling; 
and Champlain says he planted a quantity of seeds 
before the ground had closed up. He notes that the 
ice began to come down the river by December 3d, 
and that '' the cold was sharp and more severe than 
in France, and of much longer duration." In April 
the snow lay on the island three feet in depth. 

When the winter had closed in upon them they 
were like so many prisoners. It is not supposed that 
they had provided themselves with snow-shoes or that 
they were accustomed to their use. They were not 
acclimated to the inclemency of the season, and with 
the food served from their stores they began, one by 
one, to come down with "Mai de la terre" (scurvy). 
When the spring opened, out of seventy-nine, thirty- 
five of the colony had succumbed to the disease. 
Champlain's description of the symptoms and the 
progress of the malady has an interest from its realis- 
tic ciuality as well as from a pathological point of 
view. 

The colony physician held a post-mortem, which 
showed "the interior parts mortified, — such as the 
lungs, which were so changed that no natural fluid 
could be seen in them. The spleen was serous and 
swollen; the liver was legueux (?) and spotted, with- 
out its natural color. The vena cava, superior and 
inferior, was filled with thick, coagulated and black 
blood. The gall was tainted, nevertheless, many arte- 
ries, in the middle, as well as the lower bowels were 
found in very good condition. In the case of some, 
incisions with a razor were made on the thighs where 



130 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

they had purple spots, whence there issued a very 
black clotted blood." 

The disease was not confined to the helpers of the 
colony — the surgeons were afflicted with the others. 
Spring was watched for with anxiety, and those of the 
men who were ill, and who managed to sustain life 
until the spring days came, were healed. The intense 
cold and the lack of variety of food was the cause, 
and, not being anticipated, the men were taken down 
without opportunity for precaution. Champlain says: 
"During the winter all our liquors froze except the 
Spanish wine." Cider was dispensed by the pound. 
There were no cellars under these houses, and the cold 
had a raking effect as it swept down the river; and 
when the winds were still it rolled down the steeps 
of the air and from off the highlands; and so it seemed 
to these Frenchmen that the air " that entered by the 
cracks was sharper than that outside." The river was 
frozen over and the water in the well, so that they 
were obliged to melt snow to get the wherewithal to 
quench their thirst. They ground their grain in a 
hand-mill, which was laborious and fatiguing; there 
was a lack of fuel, as if the men could not have got out 
to the adjoining woods to replenish their supply. It 
is not to be doubted but these men were terror- 
stricken at the cold. Champlain notes that the wood 
was not to be obtained on account of the ice, which is 
somewhat obscure. Their meat was altogether salt, 
and was the cause of much discontent. Sieur de 
Monts was not above exliibiting something of a quer- 
ulous disposition, and inclined to fret over a state 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTJN 



131 



of affairs which could not be remedied — which was 
to be relieved only by the most stoical expression of 
endurance. It is evident that Champlain was able to 
keep his ink-horn thawed out a part of the time, for 
it is likely that he made notes through the winter: and 
perhaps it was on account of his having some occupa- 
tion that he seemed to take matters so cheerfully; for 
he says, naively, " It would be very difficult to ascer- 




ANNAPOLIS GUT 



tain the character of the region without spending a 
winter in it; for, on arriving here in summer, every- 
thing is very agreeable in consequence of the woods, 
fine country—" And he adds, ''There are six 
months of winter in this country." 

He regards the climate as inhospitable, and notes 
that very few Indians live in the region; but he says 
of their garments, that they are made of beaver and 
elk, and the squaws are the tailors; but he calls them 
poor fitters. He must have seen some of them that 
winter, as he describes the manner of their taking 
their game on snow-shoes, by trailing and running it 
down, even as the Canadian Micmacs of the present 
day capture their game, in the pursuit of which the 
Indian hunter can capture the caribou and deer easily, 



132 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

and not infrequently the moose, killing them with no 
other weapon than a sharp hunting-knife. 

Champlain notes their first visitors. It was in 
March when some savages came in bringing some 
game they had killed, which the colony found very 
acceptable. It is not a far stretch of the imagina- 
tion to see the settlement of these colonists with the 
plot of the place before one. One gets an idea that the 
dwellings could not have been very large, and they 
certainly were not wind-proof, for Champlain says 
they were not. It was an idle space for the majority 
of the colony, but those who made the voyage up the 
Penobscot and down to the mouth of the Kennebec 
had much to talk about, and much to recall. But they 
were in the rigors of the frost-bound winds, tasting 
their first experience of a New England winter. These 
deep snows were a revelation to the Frenchmen, as 
they were to be to the Popham Colony three years 
later at Sabino. There was begun the first New Eng- 
land graveyard, where, when the flowers bloomed in the 
sjDring, were to be counted thirty-five fresh mounds, 
over which Nature had not as yet time to cast her 
mantle of greenery. Whether the winds blew, or the 
snow came, to make a grotesque sculpturing of all vis- 
ible objects, or whether the gale had lost itself in the 
maze of the forests that surrounded the little settle- 
ment, the smokes were always spinning away from 
the chimneys, lending to the bleak air the perfume 
of its woodland saps to conjure up the romance of the 
woods and their secret mysteries. Those thin spirals 
of pungent vapor were suggestive of a rare compan- 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 133 

ionsliij), the realities of which were fraught with all 
the burdens of existence, of life, and death. The roofs 
were white with the burden of jxallid winter, and with- 
out were the stark moaning trees and the wide floes 
of crackling ice, that rose and fell with the tides ; and 
over all was the low-hanging sun, and the blinking 
stars, and the silence of a wilderness — if the wilder- 
ness may be said ever to be silent; for it is doubtful if 
Nature is ever absolutely silent. Silence implies a 
vacuum, something which Nature abhors. 

But the sounds of those winter days were dulled by 
their activities. The great fires roared uji the Pan- 
diean pipes of the chimneys, while the winds smote 
their smokes to beat them against the low^-sloping 
roofs. The blinding snows hurtled over the tops of 
the palisades to smite the gables with swirling gusts 
of sleet, or dropped away from the bending boughs of 
the storm-laden evergreens, the massy foliage of the 
hemlocks, the pines, firs, and si)ru('es. like huge blank- 
ets of fleecy down, to filter through the sunlit air, the 
wraiths of winter, in clouds of disintegrate pellicles 
that flashed all the colors of the rainbow. 

When the clouds hung low on the horizon to paint 
the sky a dead gray and the woods with the blackness 
of a pall, there was always the fir(> with its cheery 
companionship to enliven the scene within; but when 
the night came, and the sounds of the day were 
hushed; when the spraich of the winds had passed on, 
or gone down with th(^ sun, then one missed its boister- 
ous companionship, as if there were something of com- 
panionship in that, for all its suggestion of bleakness; 



134 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

for it was the suggestion of motion, which was life. 
But when the sun, blown and blood-shot, had been 
bowled over the brush of the woodland tops, and the 
stars began to blink, and then to flash and scintillate, 
until the opaque blue of the sky glistened with a weird 
splendor, then it was that the listening ear caught the 
faint music of the spheres, and the ice on the river 
began to boom like some far-off Hohenlinden, and the 
frost-rimmed nails in the cabin-walls to pull and snap 
like mimic musketry ; then the libretto of the fire writ 
across the back-log or along the sooty jamb of the 
fireplace is audibly translated, and the songs of sum- 
mer, the low voicings of the south winds, the chan- 
sons of the feathered tribes, and the murmurous med- 
ley of insect life haunting the wild bloom of the sea- 
son, make symphonies of the flapping flames, while 
its ruddy halo becomes the romance of summer's riant 
coloring. These were apparent to Champlain, and 
they influenced his style, so that as one sails with him 
one sees the things he saw, and one's appetite is whet- 
ted for more. 

With De Monts it was different. He had dyed his 
anticipations with the roseate hue of morning; but 
winter, bleak and smothering, had nipped their bloom 
and sapped his ambitions. Before the ice had gone 
out the streams he watched with fretting spirit the de- 
pletion of his colony to one half its original comple- 
ment. He had hoped for a lucrative trade, but the 
deeps of snow precluded that. They had embargoed 
the savage trapper as himself. Of a more mercurial 
temperament than Champlain, a man of lesser talent. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



135 



and more dependent upon current activities to buoy 
him over adversities, he already had thoughts of a re- 
turn to France. For himself, he had determined to 
abandon the St. Croix as an unfeasible site for his 
colony, and he was only waiting the return of Pou- 
trincourt to carry his plans into execution. 




%Q.?^\}t/'^ 



The days went 
with laggard steps. 
I-'rom sunrise to sun- 
set he counted the 
hours as he ditl the 
days of Champlain's 
absence on his voy- 
age up Lavardicre's 
River of Xorunibega. It was a reign of discontent 
within the stockade of the St. Croix. Under other 
circumstances, of health, occupation, and comfort, 
with a better jireparation, better shelter, and a wider 
precaution born of experience, it might have resulted 
in a prosperous colony and a rugged statehood; but 



^y 



136 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

he had not anticipated the realism, the isolation, phys- 
ical inanition, the mental wear and tear, of a Canadian 
winter. There were rigors to be withstood, he knew; 
but his temperament was not sufficiently elastic to 
enjoy so intimate an acquaintance with Dame Nature 
as a winter at St. Croix called for. Champlain says 
nothing of winter sports, of sledding or skating, or 
even snow-balling. There does not seem to have been 
any outdoor diversion, or attempt at such — otherwise 
there would have been a leaner graveyard. That 
stinging air was a microbe-killer, and the congealed 
breath of the pines a deodorizer and an antiseptic; 
but the Frenchmen hugged their fires and huddled 
from the cold like so many sheep, and shunned an 
icicle as they would a red-hot poker, shutting their 
thin noses in from the bracing weather, and cheat- 
ing their lungs from the delicious ozone of aero 
weather. 

De Monts' experience was the forerunner of all the 
colony-founders after him. The colony of 1607-08 at 
Fort St. Georges, and that of 1620 at Plymouth, 
passed the same ordeal. Popham's Colony succumbed, 
to fade away with the melting of the snows and the 
coming of Captain Davies, unless some few might have 
lingered at Pemaquid, which is even probable; but 
the colony of the Mayfloiver, despite hunger and grim 
death, clung to the sands of Cape Cod — from which 
was to grow a great civilization, greater even than 
the wildest prophecy of the time could have fore- 
shadowed. The secret of it all lay in accumulate ex- 
perience. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 137 

Given the same ration of stolidity, the same family- 
cohesion, the same domestic endowment, De Monts 
would have been successful, except that there was 
lacking in his camp the religious cult by which the 
high courage, persistent, indomitable, of the Puritan 
was inspired and maintained. This last may be re- 
garded as the link in the chain that through every 
stress moored them to ultimate success. This colony 
was infinitely poorer, infinitely weaker in a sense, 
whose debarkation upon a bleak and shelterless coast 
took place at a time of the year when De Monts and 
his men were roasting their shins before blazing wood- 
fires under rain-tight roofs. There was a difference 
between Cape Malabarre and Mont Desert, as Cham- 
plain noted the following fall; but it was winter, and 
the rilgriuLs found the ground covered with snow. 
They were poorer in everything, equipment, resources, 
and stores, than was De Monts; for De Monts had a 
vessel and sailors, a cartographist, a man exi)ert in 
soils and minerals— withal, the support of his govern- 
ment. The Puritan had none of these. He was a de- 
luded passenger, the sport of avarice, a dissenter, pro- 
scribed by the prelates of the Roman Catholic Church, 
a fugitive from the persecution of Parker, AVhitgift, 
Bancroft, and later the infamous Laud; only to be 
recognized when he had acquired something which 
the English Government could tax, and from which 
some revenue could be derived to the Crown. Then 
came the taskmaster; yet the Puritan throve and 
waxed strong, to finally cast the English money- 
changers without the temple. It was English grit 



138 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



against the grit of the Cape Cod sands — but the re- 
sultant fusion was perfect. 

The comparison is instructive. 

De Monts expected too much, and his disappoint- 
ment, when he awoke to see how completely his dream 
had been shattered, was keen. He was glad to be rid 
of his patent, its responsibilities and its offices. The 







^'T^ 



ST. CROIX RIVER FROM LUBEC 



sunny skies of France were more benign. In his place, 
Champlain would have made a success of the venture, 
one may safely assume, with his evident adhesion to 
purpose, his disposition unaffected by the perils that 
beset him on the sea and amid the wilds of the sav- 
ages, his hardihood and indifference to dangers, seen 
and unseen. It is doubtful if Champlain would have 
located his colony on St. Croix Island. It had its ad- 
vantages, and had De Monts been better acquainted 
with the climate, the influence of the Gulf Stream 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 139 

upon the climatic phenomena of the coast, he would 
have pitched possibly upon the more benign shores 
of Nova Scotia, rather than the deeps of the forest 
up the St. Croix River, where the gentle warmth 
of the great ocean river from the tropics never 
came. 

Champlain makes no mention of indoor diversions 
at the St. Croix settlement, such as were inaugurated 
the first winter at Port Royal, and which lent some 
lubricity to the leaden-footed hours. Perhaps it was 
out of his experience at St. Croix that Champlain sug- 
gested the famous " L'Ordre de Bon Temps/' which 
may have been as well suggested by the legends of 
King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It 
was a club of fifteen, each member of which, in rota- 
tion, once in fifteen days, officiaied at De Poutrin- 
court's table as the maitre d'hbtel, and for that day he 
was provider and chef. There was something to look 
forward to each day, and a round of jolly good-fellow- 
ship was kept up. Dinner was a mild carnival-time, 
and in order to cover the cloth, hunting-parties were 
organized with the Indians, day l)y day, by those to 
whom the lot came, each of whom a day or two before 
the mantle of his office fell upon him was off on the 
hunting-trail; nor did the hunter return until some 
toothsome delicacy had fallen before his unerring 
musket, or answered to a prod of his spear through 
the ice. It was fish or game at breakfast, and perhaps 
the same at dinner: l)ut whatever it was, it was a festi- 
val of good eating, good reason, and a flow of soul. 
One must admit Champlain to have been fertile in 



140 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



expedients; no doubt he contributed his share to the 
congenialities of the circle. 

Home from the hunt with the best that he and his 
hunters could capture, the maitre cVJiotel made his 
preparations for the following day. The great fires 




PORT ROYAL 



were in readiness for the cooking of the viands, and 
he set about his task with the breaking of the dawn 
on the eventful day. Breakfast ready to be served, 
he threw his napkin over his shoulder, and with a 
proper sense of the responsibility of the office, one 
may assume, — as the badge of his high function, with 
haton in hand, the insignia of the " L'Ordre de Bon 
Temps" about his shoulders, — he announced the fare; 
and tradition has it that this collar was no flimsy 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 141 

affair, but worth above four French crowns. The 
members of the order closed in behind him in military 
rank, each armed with a plate which it was his especial 
privilege to keep in order himself. This was the man- 
ner in which they approached each repast, to be va- 
ried in the evening, when, after thanking God for the 
mercies of the day, the chef of the day gave up his 
insignia to his successor, whose good health, and the 
healths of his companions, were pledged by each in a 
glass of wine. Lescarbot says that the savages were 
tlicre as well, onlooking, and "at table eating and 
drinking like us, and we right glad to see them, as, 
on the contrary, their absence would have made us 
sorry." Nothing of this kind enlivened the days at 
the St. Croix settlement. 

It was there that the winter crept its slow pace, 
while the slow days, heaped and blinded with the 
riotous, wind-l)lown snow, spanned the low gables 
that shrunk from the buffetings of the gale. The fires 
on the great hearths leapt crazily about the fire-logs 
piled on the huge andirons, which may have been 
nothing more than a pair of stone slabs picked up on 
the island shore, or smouldered into gray ash, their 
smokes swirling up the wide throats of the rude chim- 
neys in gusty draughts. Then there were other days, 
when the snow had forgotten to fall, when the winds 
had gone to sleep, and the intense cold hugged the 
valleys and fettered the wide mouths of the rivers 
with undulating floes of ice as the tides ebbed or 
flowed, and etched upon the meagre window-panes 
the wonder-foliage of the frost, — the palms that never 



142 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

elsewhere grew on land, and the gracious filigrees of 
ferns that never drank from out the woodland spring, 
— yet only to fade away before the soft winds of the 
south, the croaking of the errant crow, and the swell- 
ing of the buds; for as De Monts and Champlain ate 
and slept, or wrote one day into another, the ice broke 
in the river and went plunging out to sea, and spring 
had come to the St. Croix, 

These were the days for which the voyagers had 
been waiting, 

" When the shadows veil the meadows, 
And the sunset's golden ladders 
Sink from twilight's walls of gray," 

to weave wraiths of tremulous mists along the streams, 
and paint the woodlands with the crimson of the 
maples; when the streams vied in their babblings with 
the thrush piping in the lowlands, and the dews un- 
locked the choicest perfumes of the woods. 

But these were not the days of idleness for Cham- 
plain. As the fire roared up the great chimneys of the 
triple houses, of D'Orville, Champlain, and Champa- 
dore, for the dwellings of these three constituted a 
single block of buildings, Champlain sharpened the 
nibs of his goose-ciuills and wrote the narrative of the 
first voyage down the coast, or drew the charts of its 
lines; and one can imagine the delightful entertain- 
ment his work afforded him as the story grew, or in 
the lines that one by one found their way into exist- 
ence, over which he again went with loving glance to 
hear the ripple of the Penobscot tides, 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 143 

" the stealthy feet of things 
Whose shapes he could not see," 

the flutter of the down-falling leaf in the silent wood- 
land; to breathe again the odors of the autumn's de- 
cay, the dank moisture of the forest floors; and the 
soft glamour of the eyes of the Indian maid, and the 




savage rudeness of their living, swept across his lively 
or reminiscent vision. 

It was in these days that De Monts strained his eyes 
down the river to get a glimpse of the delaying sails 
of Poutrincourt's ship. April had gone, and De Monts' 
brain was troubled with visions of shipwreck. He 
waited until the 15th of May, when he decided to fit 
out the barque of seventeen tons, and another of seven, 
so that he might get away to Gasp^ in quest of a ves- 
sel by which he might reach France. He was homesick, 
certainly; but on June 15th, as the guard went his 



144 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

rounds a little before midnight, Pont-Grave came in 
a shallop with the news that his ship was but six 
leagues away, lying safely at anchor. There was great 
rejoicing at the St. Croix settlement, and everybody 
was routed out to extend his greetings to the new- 
comer after such manner as suited him best. There 
was little sleep for the rest of the night, for Pont- 
Grave had to relate all the news from France, and his 
listeners were never tired of his tale. De Monts' spir- 
its arose with the occasion, and they mounted higher 
when the next morning the French ship came loom- 
ing out the greenery of the river-banks to seaward. 
It was then that Pont-Grave vouchsafed the further 
information that the St. Estienne, of St. Malo, was not 
far behind with abundant store of provisions; but 
this did not effect a change of De Monts' purpose to 
return with the first ship for France. He had tired of 
the Island of the Holy Cross. It was France, or a more 
propitious location, " better adapted for an abode, and 
with a better temperature." De Monts acted promptly; 
for on the 18th of June, with some other gentlemen, 
among whom were Champlain and M. Simon, and 
twenty sailors, taking along Panounais and his squaw 
as guides, he sailed away down the river and over the 
course taken the previous autumn, to complete his 
explorations to the west and south. 

This was Champlain' s second voyage down the 
coast, which took the party as far as Cape Cod, which 
Champlain nominated, ''Cap de Malabarre." It was 
an eventful voyage, and added to De Monts' knowl- 
edge of the country, and perhaps confirmed him in his 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



145 



disposition to return to Franco. The voyage occupied 
four months, and Chaniplain says they left Cape Mala- 
barre October 28th, setting sail for St. Croix. He says, 
"The air was very cold, and there was a little snow." 
The course was direct for the mouth of the Penobscot. 
The last day of October found them between Mont 
Desert and Cap Corneille (Crow Cape, between Campo- 
bello and Moose Island, on which is situated the town of 




LUBEC NARROWS 



Eastport) . The rudder of their vessel broke, and they 
resolved to take to the land to repair it, or to ship a 
new one. With only a foresail set, they were driven 
through the night trying to steer by the ''sheets of 
the foresail," which they held in their hands. Finally, 
a boat was let over the stern with some men and oars, 
by which they were enabled to sail their ship as they 
wished. As the dawn began to break, they were al- 
most upon the Isles Rangees, a nest of breakers; but 
the wind abated and they managed to get away in 
safety. 



146 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

With the first day of November they were able to 
make a landing upon an island where they found the 
ice of a thickness of two inches, and Champlain was 
impressed with the difference between the climate of 
Cape Malabarre and these islands about the mouth 
of Passamaquoddy Bay. It was a slight foretaste of 
winter; but the following day the barque was beached, 
and there it was they got the first news of the happen- 
ings about the St. Croix region since their departure 
in June. A few days before, a massacre had taken 
place here. One tribe of savages had made an on- 
slaught upon some of their neighbors, the result being 
the killing of some, and the capture of a few squaws 
who were executed at Mont Desert after the savage 
fashion. 

A new rudder shipped, they left Cap Corneille for 
the eastward, and the next day they were anchored 
in the ''little passage of Sainte Croix River." The 
following day they anchored south of Manan. On the 
twelfth they again made sail, when the shallop was 
thrown against the stern of the ship "so violently 
and roughly that it made an opening and stove in her 
upper works, and again in the recoil broke the iron 
fastenings of our rudder." The wind was stiff and the 
seas ran high, so they ran under a foresail, but they 
kept on until they reached Port Royal safely. 

This year was colored with a single tragedy, — it 
was the killing of their savage guide, Panounais, by 
the Inchans about the Penobscot. He was brought to 
the French settlement from Norumbega, where an im- 
posing funeral obsequy was held. Champlain de- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN I47 

scribes the savage ceremony: ''As soon as the body 
was brought on shore, his relatives and friends began 
to shout by his side, having painted their faces black, 
which is their mode of mourning. After lamenting 
much, they took a quantity of tobacco and two or 
three dogs and other things belonging to the deceased, 
and burned them some thousand paces from our set- 
tlement on the sea-shore. Their cries continued until 
they returned to their cabin. The next day they took 
the body of the deceased and wrapped it in a red 
covering, which Mamhretou, chief of the place, 
urgently implored me to give him since it was hand- 
some and large. He gave it to the relatives of the de- 
ceased who thanked me very much for it. After thus 
wrapi)ing up the body, they decorated it with several 
kinds of malachiats; that is strings of beads and brace- 
lets of divers colors. They painted the face, and put 
on the head many feathers and other things, the 
finest they had, then they placed the body on its knees 
between two sticks, with another under the arms to 
sustain it. Around the body were tiic mother, wife, 
and others of the relatives and friends of the deceased, 
both women and girls, howling like wolves. 

"While the women and girls were shrieking, the 
savage named Mamhretou made an address to his 
companions on the death of the deceased, urging all 
to take vengeance for the wick(>dness and treachery 
committed by the subjects of the Bessahez, and to 
make war on them as sjieedily as possible. After this, 
the body was carried to another cabin and after smo- 
king tobacco together, they wrapped it in an elk-skin 



148 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

likewise; and binding it very securely, they kept it for 
a larger gathering of savages so a larger number of 
presents would be given to the widow and children." 

This ceremony may have taken place at St. Croix; 
but Champlain describes the rite as an eye witness, 
after which, with De Monts, he went direct to Port 
Royal, the domain of the Indian chief, Mamhretou. 
There is no record of what took place at St. Croix 
after De Monts and Champlain left in June ; but in the 
autumn the settlement was transferred to Port Royal, 
and De Monts sailed for France. At Port Royal their 
shelters were no better than at St. Croix, but Cham- 
plain says, "We spent the winter very pleasantly." 
He mentions as of the 24th of May the coming of a 
small barc^ue to Port Royal bringing a letter from De 
Monts in which was announced the birth of Mon- 
signeur d' Orleans, whereat bonfires were lighted, and 
the Te Deum was chanted. 

It was not an utter desertion of St. Croix with the 
departure of De Monts, for the houses were habit- 
able, and in the summer season it was a delightful 
place. The island of itself was an attractive spot, 
abundantly clad with towering forest trees, perhaps a 
mile and a half about its shores, and containing per- 
haps fifteen acres. It was secluded, and commanded 
the river which became finally the southern boundary 
of Acadia. But for the extreme inclemency of the 
/winter, the French Protestant nobleman De Monts 
might have founded a considerable city. Its seaward 
extremity ascended from the river-bank by an easy 
incline to make a commanding hilltop. Here was set 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN I49 

up the battery of the colon}-, and here was the chapel, 
which tradition says was like unto a wigwam. The cu- 
rate's house was at the other side of the island, near by 
the residence of Champlain and De Monts. The end of 
the island opposite to the battery was entrenched, 
and here was the round of the guard, who was on the 
watch day and night. Here it was the guard first 






A DEER ISLAND RELIC 

caught the hail of Font-Grave that mid-May night 
when the garrison routed out to greet the wel- 
come visitor. Between the battery and this barricade 
were the houses of the soldiers and the other cabins, 
altogether constituting a considerable village. These 
were surrounded by a stout palisade, and the fort was 
something of the block-house fashion of solid carpen- 
ter work, and over it floated the flag of France. 
There was a magazine roofed in that stood in close 
proximity to the quarters of the commander of the 
settlement. 



150 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Everything was built to an elaborate plan, and, 
according to Lescarbot, religious services were held 
here. These Frenchmen were Huguenots, and their 
church service was undoubtedly modelled after the 
form of the Reformed German Church. Champlain 
locates the house of the curate in his "Habitations 
Visle Ste. Croix," but the location of the chapel is not 
given. Champlain does not make mention of any 
church service during the winter at St. Croix. These 
Huguenots were earnest in the propagation of the 
Protestant religion, and if such a service was a fact 
it would antedate the labors of the Episcopal Church 
at Popham's Colony, which began three years later at 
Fort St. Georges, which is claimed to have been the 
first regular church service on Maine soil. 

It is here one hears first of La Tour, whose bitter 
warfare with D'Aulnay furnished some of the romance 
of the time, and who is supposed to have come over 
with De Monts. La Tour's operations were distributed 
farther to the eastward, along the shores of Port Royal. 
After De Monts went to France, and Poutrincourt to 
Port Royal, the Island of St. Croix was under the 
charge of Plastrier, of Honfleur. He was here in 
1608-09, and maintained the French post also, in 1610. 
It was while here, in the interests of the expansion of 
the French territory, that he planned his expedition 
to Pemaquid to dislodge the English who were using 
that place as a trading-station. He sailed down to 
Pemaquid with the purpose of establishing the Crown 
rights of his government over the Sagadahoc coun- 
try; but only to fall a prey to the ships of the Pop- 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 151 

ham interest, which happened to be there in sufficient 
numbers to overpower him. It is supposed that it 
was Popham's ship, the Gift of God, which effected 
his capture, and which for the time ended the French 
interference with the EngHsh fishermen at that place. 
The La Tours were notably connected with the 
earlier Acadian days. April, 1598, saw the Edict of 
Nantes in force. The Protestant was recognized by 
the King ; and so it happened, when De Monts set sail 
for New France with a ship-load of colonists, theyi 
contained Catholic as well as Protestant, which 
latter faith was that of the leader of the expedi- 
tion, De Monts. Young Charles de la Tour may pos- 
sibly have come over in the same ship with Pou- 
trincourt, keeping his father company on this ad- 
venturous voyage. The boy would have been about 
the age of fourteen, and it is perhaps as well to say 
that he came with the De Monts Expedition as with 
any other. It makes no dilTerencc in the results, for 
the Jesuit was at the heels of the Protestant wherever 
he went in this new country, and if it were a possible 
consummation to be had, he was as likely to be in the 
van. The dreams of these French adventurers, as one 
thinks of it, must have been much like those w^hich 
came to the Puritans as they sailed away from the 
old Plymouth to the new. Religious obloquy and 
persecution had followed the French Huguenots, and 
it was with a fond anticipation that De Monts and 
Poutrincourt built the new castles to overhang the 
new seas. It is not questioned but Poutrincourt's 
dreams were shattered when, by the influence of the 



152 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Queen, young Biencourt was compelled to take along 
the Jesuits Biart and Masse. Not long after, fretted 
and exasperated by their interference with his ad- 
ministration of the affairs of his colony, he left it to 
his son, who was finally betrayed by Biart into the 
piratic hands of Argall. Poutrincourt, with De Monts, 
who had anticipated him, thought the sunny hills 
and the purpling vineyards of old France a more at- 
tractive setting for his ambitions than the virgin 
charms of Port Royal. Fated to the persecution of 
the priests, young Biencourt found himself a wan- 
derer in a strange country, his settlement plundered. 
The sack of his Arcady complete, he, with other 
Frenchmen, including young Charles de la Tour, 
maintained a precarious existence in the country; 
whereby Biencourt asserted the jurisdiction of the 
French Crown to the region. He threw up a fortifi- 
cation at Cape Sable, which he called Fort St. Louis. 
Young La Tour was his lieutenant, and when Bien- 
court died, 1622-23, the mantle of the French honor 
dropped to the shoulders of La Tour. That it was 
safe in his hands was verified when approached by 
his father in the English interest with a suggestion 
that he surrender his fort and his colony to the Eng- 
lish jurisdiction. The father was one of the baronets 
constituted under the patent of Sir William Alexan- 
der. Each baronetcy was entitled to twenty-four 
square miles of the Province lands. 

Young La Tour was of stern stuff. He had written 
home in hopes that the command of the Province of 
Acadia would be given him. He had not asked for 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 153 

help, relying on the natives as his resource if attacked. 
The French were of fortunate disposition. In the few 
lines quoted from Smith, in the beginning of the story 
of Pentagoet, the latter says the French are reported 
to " live with these people (savages) as one nation or 
family." La Tour had made friends with the Souri- 
quoise. He informed the home government that he 
had a hundred of these Souriquoise warriors, and 
he could get on without further reenforcements. 
This report he gave to his father, who was later to 
be his attempted seducer. 

It was about this time that Sir David Kirk, a 
French Huguenot who had tired of France and he- 
come a British subject, was playing at licensed piracy 
on the French expeditions to New France, and who 
had lingered on his way down the river from his suc- 
cessful raid on Quebec. Claude Turgis de Saint 
Ktieinie, Sieur de la Tour, the father of Charles de la 
Tour, was unfortunately the bearer of this report; 
and when the fleet of DeRoquemont sailed away from 
Cape Sable, La Tour, senior, went along with liim. 
Off the St. Lawrence, De Roquemont ran into arms of 
Kirk, and his voyage to Quebec was then and there 
terminated. 

The l":nglish began the voyage home with De 
Rociuemont's fleet in tow, and it was on this oppor- 
tunity that affairs came to a head between La Tour 
and Kirk. Both were Frenchmen, Huguenots, ex- 
patriated as it were by Richelieu's voidance of the 
rights secured to the French Protestants by the Edict 
of Nantes, through his organization of the "Hundred 



154 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

Associates," 1627, which forbade foreigners or here- 
tics entering New France. As between Catholic and 
Protestant of France there was intense bitterness, 
and here was a lively bond between Kirk and La 
Tour. It was through the enmity of the religionist 
Protestant, and the desire to save Acadia as open 
ground, to take it from out the domination of the 
Jesuit, that the elder La Tour was led to lend ear to 




Hi-Mil/ L 



IjL •--"■V'^.^''t:; 



[(•'r i(i«-- 



CHERRY ISLAND 

the seductive Kirk, who was not only able to sway 
him from his loyalty to France, but to arouse him to 
that pitch of enthusiasm by which he was led to in- 
volve his son in the mesh of Sir William Alexander's 
colonial ambitions ; but not until he had taken to wife 
one of Henrietta's maids of honor, with whom he be- 
came so infatuated as to promise anything. With the 
versatility of his race, he was court painter to his 
wife one day and poet laureate the next. He painted 
for her delectation the virgin beauty of the land to 
which he was about to take her, the beneficent shel- 
ter of its skies, the marvellous enchantments that lay 
within the gray shadows of its wooded domain. Then 
he sang to her of the delights of the days, as they 
would use them, once settled in his seignory of La 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 155 

Tour and \'uarvc. In his second marriage he was 
again a youth in the possession of so royal a gift from 
the English queen; and one smiles and rejoices alike 
at the alchemy of Love, in the art of which La Tour 
belonged to a race of past-masters; so that which 
his fair young wife overlooked was readily invented 
and supplied by the husband. The delusion was kept 
up of a princely domain at the other side of the voy- 
age to New Scotland — for as such Sir A\'illiam Alex- 
ander's baronies were to be known in the aggregate. 
The elder La Tour was on the sea with his two Eng- 
lish ships, well armed and well manned, and duly 
authorized under the Great Seal to accomplish great 
things. 

Dropping anchor off Fort St. Louis, the father made 
haste to approach his son Charles with the suggestion 
that he lower the French flag and in its place run up 
the banner of St. George. He .^^howed him an English 
patent of knighthood wherein he was styled " Charles 
de Sainct Etienne, esq., lord of Sainct Denicourt." 
He exhibited as well the patents of the two princely 
baronies secured to them under the royal seal, " Sainct 
Etienne" and "La Tour." The price was the alle- 
giance of father and son to the English interest, and 
the latter was not to be disturbed in his command at 
Cape Sable. 

The son turned a deaf ear and, for all the tyrannies 
of the Jesuit-led government, remained steadfast to 
his trust. La Tour senior, exliausting all the blandish- 
ments common to such enterprises, landed a portion 
of his forces and demanded the surrender of the fort. 



156 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



The son was obdurate in his refusal. The assault be- 
gan, and the defense was so vigorous that, after two 
days, the invaders drew off, having suffered a loss of 
some men and a deal of prestige, with an oozing out 
of much vaunting and pride. The great projects of 
the elder La Tour had succumbed to the heavy frost 
of disappointment, and he could but feel his position 
keenly, which was not lessened by the incorrupti- 
bility of the son. For high emprise, was open-faced. 




ANNAPOLIS BASIN 



grim-visaged disaster; for the love-founded castles in 
Spain, was dire failure upon the confines of a country 
whose doors he had pulled to against his heels. France 
was no more country of his; England would be hardly 
more comfortable ; — then what was to be done with 
the young wife? He offered her her liberty to return 
to the English Court and its protection; but she 
would none of that. She answered him, as a wife 
should, that ''she would make it her happiness to 
alleviate the pain of his disappointment." 

La Tour and his lady were at last landed with all 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 157 

thoir stranded hopes and servants on the shores of 
Acadia, and at the sufferance of the son, whose only 
resource was to afford his father his habitation and 
sustenance without the fort. Afterward, the elder 
La Tour found his way to the Scotch settlement at 
Port Royal; and recovering somewhat of his inde- 
pendence and prestige, he located on Annapolis Basin, 
near Goat Island, where he built a fort — the slender 
remains of which may yet be discovered, and which 
is known as the Old Scotch Fort. 

Young La Tour's loyalty was appreciated by the 
home government, and Louis XIIL made him Lieu- 
tenant-General of Acadia, Fort Louis, Port La Tour, 
and all the dependencies. Marot had brought along 
the commission, which was strengthened by men 
and supplies. This was in February of 1();31. The 
first thought of the Lieutenant-General was the com- 
fort and safety of his father. ri)on talking the mat- 
ter over with Marot, it was decided the latter should 
go to the Port Royal settlement, and when there 
should make himself acquainted with the condition 
of the Scotch, inform the elder La Tour of the honors 
which had come to the son, and desire him to come 
to him to see what further provisions for his comfort 
and safety could be made for the future. La Tour re- 
turned with Marot. It was a story of lean days and 
living, and of a "fat churchyard;" and with the de- 
parture of La Tour and his household the savages 
managed to dispose of what had not been claimed by 
disease. 

La Tour the eklcr was given command of St. Joim 



158 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

by his son, and a small castle was built in the midst of 
a fertile plateau, where he nested with his fair wife 
in some fair fashion of security, and with much en- 
joyment. 

Then came the Treaty of St. Germain, and still, in 
1635, 

" O'er the Isle of the Pheasant 
The morning sun shone 
On the plane-trees which shaded 
The shores of St. John ; ' ' 

but there was a land grant made the following year 
of some of the country about Pentagoet, a patch ten 
leagues square, with the old French trading-house, 
and the elder La Tour was the patentee. This is sup- 
posed to have been the beginning of the feud between 
D'Aulnay and the La Tours. D'Aulnay was driven 
from the Island of the Holy Cross by La Tour, from 
whence he went to Pentagoet, where he set up anew, 
and the La Tours occupied the St. Croix. There are 
La Tour traditions, but they cannot be verified. 
Whittier has it that D'Aulnay made a raid on St. 
John ; but he gets the father and son mixed up in his 
legend, as it was Claude of Estienne, instead of the 
Lieutenant-General Charles, who dwelt in the Castle 
of St. John, and whose English wife was last seen 

"On the shot-crumbled turret," 

defending the pennon of her absent lord. 

St. Croix continued to be occupied by the French. 
They had forts as well at Mont Desert, Port Royal, 
and at the mouth of the Penobscot. These were de- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 159 

stroyed by the pirate Argall, in 1613, when he sailed 
down from \'irginia to make his raid for the second 
time on the St. Sauveur Mission at Mont Desert. 
From that time on it was one of the French footholds, 
one of the chain of fortified posts that fringed the 
Maine shore to the St. John's, and thence up the Bay 
of Fundy. It became an important matter to estab- 
lish the identity of St. Croix Island during the set- 
tlement of tlie Northeast Boundary; and the finding 
of a few cannon-balls on the southern extremity of 
Neutral Island established its identity, so that the 
ancient Schootauke river of the savage (the place 
where the water rushes), corrupted into the Schoodic 
River, but now better known as the St. Croix, became 
the boundary between Maine and Canada on the east: 
a territorial mishap that may well l)c hiid at the door 
of one of Maine's careless historians. This became 
ultimately the most southern foothold of the French, 
and it so remained until the cession of Canada to the 
English, in 1763. It is now one of the islands about 
which clusters the romance of the earliest French 
occupation. Its traditions are few, of which its de- 
struction by Argall is the most sanguinary. The 
footprints of those who knew it first are utterly blotted 
out. The burying-ground is not to be located. The 
grass-grown mounds arc ironed down by the rude 
hand of time, and the wooden crosses that once 
marked them are rotted and eaten uj) by the rank 
vegetation, ^^^lere once 

"The songs of the Huguenot 
Rose on the gale" 



160 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



is only the single gleam of its light-tower flashing its 
silent greeting to the myriad lights of the city across 
the stream, the lone Pharos that marks the site of 
the earliest French occupation on the now Maine 
coast to recall the days of the adventurous Cham- 
plain. 




PENTAGOET 








RUINS OF FORT PENTAGOET 



PENTAGOET 




NCIEXT IVntagoet, with its early 
occupation by the European; 
the fertile ground it affortletl for 
the ultimate tragedies that col- 
iiicd its wealth of Romance and 
Tradition, that follow every sun- 
glint or every racing cloud- 
shadow up, down, or across the 
sky-painted waters of the Pe- 
nol)scot, even to this day, be- 
*^*— ginning with the legend of the 
Xoi'nian knight; the sempiter- 
nal rune of its waters, that have their hidden springs 
in the wihhvood where even yet may be some traces 
of the Lost City which Chamjilain half-heartedly 
sought; the buried footprints of the treacherous IMart, 
and later of the more sanguinary Thury; where oft- 
times the wind blows one the pungent incense from 
the ghostly wigwam of the savage^ Toxus, and wh(>re 
the rustle of the leaf makes amorous whis))er of the 

1(53 



164 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

tale St. Castin poured into the ear of the dusky 
Mathilde; — this Pentagoet lives as do the waters that 
lap viciously at her granite sandals, or softly fret the 
reedy marge of her emerald gown, as the summer 
nights come and go at old Castine. 

But Pentagoet is as old as the hills, and one knows 
that should be antique enough for all ordinary pur- 
poses. Prior to 1555 Thevet found a little fort here 
and some French traders, and he left them for De 
Monts and Champlain to search out, but which these 
later adventurers failed to find. The following spring, 
1605, Weymouth dropped into one of the little ha- 
vens along the Monhegan shore, — for there is no 
hawser of rhyme or reason by which it would seem 
possible to pull Weymouth into the mouth of the 
Penobscot River, despite the desperate efforts of some, 
— and, for all that, Rosier lives, de nominis umbra, 
like a huge brass handle on the greater door of the 
Penobscot, to remind one of another who, instead of a 
spit of land at a river-mouth, acquired a whole con- 
tinent with even less exertion. If Rosier had even 
seen Penobscot River he would perhaps have been 
as indefinite and elusive as he was in his intended 
narrative of the Sagadahoc. Had he been like Cap- 
tain John Smith, he might have written the follow- 
ing: "The most northern part I was at was the 
Bay of Penobscot, which is east and west, north and 
south, more than ten leagues; but such were my oc- 
casions I was constrained to be satisfied of them I 
found in the bay, the river ran far up into the land, 
and was well inhabited^with many people; but they 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 165 

were from their habitations, either fishing among the 
isles, or Imnting the lakes and wootis for deer and 
beavers. 

" The bay is full of great islands of one, two, six, 
eight, or ten miles in length, which divide it into many 
faire and excellent good harbours. On the east of it 
are the Tarratines, their mortal enemies, where in- 
habit the French, as they report, that live with these 
people as one nation or family." 

He locates the Tarratines on the east side of the 
river. This stream was the river of the Tarratines: 
it was their highway, up and down which they pad- 
dled their canoes as they went to their fishing, or 
down the coast for their feastings of shell-fish, or upon 
their errands of peace or war. This mighty stream 
was the river of solitudes, except for the wild fowl that 
beat up or down its shaggy shores. It was a realm of 
silence, where at times the song of the northwind had 

"The tones of a far-off bell." 

It might have been the boom of the bittern, the cry 
of the sentinel-heron, that beat the lengthening rib- 
bon of graying shadow of the waning afternoon into 
tremulous vibration; the trenchant tread of the moose; 
the whistle of the browsing deer, its keen vision dis- 
closing the mysteries of the wootUand from the sky- 
lights that patched its verdurous dome, to the deep- 
ening vistas of the crowding woodland aisles, 

" Where are mossy carpets better 
Than the Persian weaves, 
And than Eastern perfumes sweeter 
Seem the fading leaves. 



166 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



Out upon the sleepy waters the lone canoe hung 
as between sky and earth — the canoe of the fisher. 
Again, the tumult of a hundred jjaddlcs churns the 




A GLIMPSE OF THE PENOBSCOT 



ever-widening stream into threads of foam. One looks 
once more, and the river is but an inlaying of the sky 
upon the vert of the woodland, — a strip of dusky 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 167 

blue laid athwart the illimitable carpeting of the 
wilderness, where 

"the mighty Bashaba 
Held his long unquestioned sway, 
From the Wliite Hills, far away, 

To the great sea's sounding shore; 
Chief of chiefs, his regal word 
All the river Sachems heard; 
At his call the war-dance stirred. 

Or was still once more." 

In Weymouth's Journal of 1605 one reads: "June 
1. Indians came and traded with us. Pointing to 
one part of the main, eastward, they signified to us 
that the Bashebc, their king, had plenty of furs, and 
much tobacco." ChamjDlain, the year before, dropped 
anchor off the mouth of the Kcnduskeag, anticipating 
Weymouth's advent upon the Sagadahoc; and going 
ashore to their little collection of huts, he met the 
"Bessabez." He saw him in all his squalid state; for 
the savage was a creature of superstitions, as of tra- 
ditions. The occult predominated in his disposition, 
and much was hereditary cither through family trait 
or family prowess. Importance in the tribe was de- 
pendent upon the number of scalp-locks on the wig- 
wam roof-i)ole, and the savage chief carried additional 
prestige if he was credited with the magic skill of the 
wizard, 

" And a Panisee's dark will 
Over powers of good and ill, 
Powers which bless, and powers which ban, — " 

and such never lacked followers on the war-path. 



168 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Strachey, the annalist of the Popham venture at 
Sabino, describes the immediate country as that of 
"a Sagamo or chief commander under the graund 
bassaba." In another reference to the Sachem of sa- 
chems, he notes, ''The salvadges departed in their 
canoas for the river of Pemaquid, promising Captain 
Gilbert to accompany him in their canoas to the river 
of Penobscot where the bassaba dwells." Here, 
Strachey locates the seat of the Bassaba. 

In looking over Gorges' Brief Narration, one finds 
this: ''That part of the country we first seated in 
seemed to be monarchical, by name and title of a 
Bashaba." Smith, 1614, had some intercourse with 
the savages along the Maine coast. He counted sev- 
eral tribes, and he writes that certain of them re- 
garded "the Bashaba to be the chief and greatest 
among them, though most of them had Sachems of 
their own." 

Of all these, it is apparent that only Champlain 
met this dignitary. This was in the autumn of 1605. 
The Frenchmen had been led up-stream to Kadesquit 
by the savages whose acquaintance they had made at 
Pematiq ; and opposite the mouth of the Kenduskeag, 
just below where the river forks on the white rocks, 
was where their barque was moored. Champlain says 
the savages who had led them to the " rapids of Nor- 
umbega . . . went to inform Bessabes, their Captain, 
and gave him warning of our arrival." 

The embassy was successful, for he notes that on 
the sixteenth day of the month he was visited by 
many savages, some thirty in number, who came 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 169 

after the most friendly fashion, being assured by their 
guides hither of their hke friendly mission — " also 
came the said Bessabes to us that same day with six 
canoes." Champlain further notes: "As soon as the 
savages who were on shore saw him arrive, they all 
began to sing, dance and leap until he had alighted; 
afterwards they all sat down in a circle on the ground, 
following that custom when they wish to make some 
speech or festival. Cabahis, the other Chief, soon 
after arrived, also, with 20 or 30 of his companions, 
who withdrew to the other side, and rejoiced greatly 
to see us, inasmuch as it was the first time they had 
ever seen Christians." 

After the honors had been observed, and the state 
visit had been made to the strangers, Champlain, with 
two of his companions, accompanied by his two sav- 
age interpreters, Panounais and his squaw, went on 
shore — not, however, without {irecaution. He writes: 
" I charged the persons on our part to approach near 
the savages and hold their arms ready to do their 
duty if they should perceive any disturbance in his 
pco]:)le against us. Bessabes seeing us on shore, made 
us sit down, and began to smoke with his companions, 
as they ordinarily do before making their speeches, 
and made us a present of venison and game. All the 
rest of the day and the following night, they did 
nothing but sing, dance and feast, awaiting daylight; 
afterwards each one went back, Bessabes with his 
companions. . . ." 

It is evident that Champlain did not visit Bessabes 
in his capital city, where. 



170 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

" his spoils of chase and war, 
Jaw of wolf and black bear's paw, 
Panther's skin and eagle's claw, 

Lay beside his axe and bow; 
And adown the roof-pole hung, 
Loosely on a snake-skin strung. 
In the smoke his scalp-locks swung 

Grimly, to and fro." 

Had he reclined upon the heaped-up furs of the 
great Abenake chief, where he could have looked out 
upon the river as they talked or smoked, to catch a 
glimpse of 

"rowers rowing. 
Stir of leaves and wild-flowers blowing, 
Steel-like gleams of water flowing. 
In the sunlight slanted," 

he would have not only written of them, but he might 
have essayed to have caught the charm of the scene 
with his pencil. If one takes note of Champlain's 
sketches, none of them are in perspective, but all 
seem to be of the bird's-eye characteristic. His land- 
scapes are charted, as are his coast contours, and yet 
all are suggestive of the assimilative vision. One 
has to regret that the art of those days was so crude 
from a pictorial point of view. One would be satis- 
fied with the sketchiness of the cosmopolitan news- 
sheet, could one but have had preserved to his curi- 
osity the Bessabes' portrait, his tapering wigwam, 
a glimpse of its interior, and a panel sketch from the 
turned-back flap of his wigwam door. It is singular 
that of all the early voyagers of the time, and those 
who came along with them, nothing had been pre- 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 171 

served outside the pictorial embellishment of the 
contemporary maps. 

It is as well evident that Champlain was not over- 
impressed with the state of the Bashaba; and perhaps 
it was because his disappointment was so keen that, 
all along the way up the grand stream, from its mouth 
for a distance of twenty-five leagues, he not only 
" saw no city, nor village, nor appearance of there 
having been one; but, indeed, one or two savage huts 
where there was nobody." 

It has been conjectured that the city of the Ba- 
shaba was further up the stream, and that Champlain 
did not penetrate to its location. One thing is to be 
gathered from his narrative, — that the Sagamore of 
Mawooshen met his French visitors by the mouth of 
the Kenduskeag, which was some distance from his 
village. This observation of the French voyager was 
in 1605; but Heylin, writing of the locality after the 
coast-line of Acadia had become familiar to the Eng- 
lish and French mariner, says: "Most have formerly 
agreed upon Norumbegua or Arampec as the natives 
call it; said to be a large, poi)ulous and well-built town, 
and to be situate on a fair and capacious river of the 
same name also. But later observations tell us there 
is no such matter; that the river which the first rela- 
tions did intend, is Temptegonet, neither large nor 
pleasant; and that the place by them meant is called 
Agguncia, so far from being a fair city, that there are 
only a few sheds or cabins, covered with the barks of 
trees, or the skins of beasts." The same author also 
mentions "Nansic" as the river of the Tarratines. 



172 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

Call it by whatever name suits the ancient annalist 
best, it is always the Penobscot River that is meant. 

The Jesuits were here in 1611, and in their ''Rela- 
tions" one finds mention of Betsebes, "Sagamo of 
Kadesquit." It is evident that the Bashaba of 
Strachey, the Bcssabes of Champlain, and the Betse- 
bes of Biart are one and the same; for Biart writes of 
his lanchng on Mont Desert: ''On our first visit and 
landing at St. Savior, we made as though the place 
did not please us, and that we should go to another 
part; the good people of the place wept and lamented. 
On the other hand, the Sagamo of Kadesquit, named 
Betsebes, himself came for us to allure us by a thousand 
promises, having heard we proposed to go there to 
dwell." 

This savage people have been the subject of much 
discussion. The interest has doubtless arisen from 
the importance which the great river has always held 
from the earliest voyagings, and among whom the 
pioneer settler has cast his uncertain lot. According 
to the accounts of Purchas, Winthrop, Prince, Hub- 
bard, and others, the Penobscot tribe was known as 
the Tarratine. In Smith's account one finds this: 
"The principal habitations I saw at the northward 
was at Penobscot, who are at war with the Tarra- 
teens, their next northerly neighbors;" and Gorges 
follows, making confusion worse confused by saying, 
"The war growing more violent between the Bash- 
aba and the Terrentines," etc. It does not occur to 
the writer that the remark of Gorges would have any 
weight in the settlement of the tribal occupancy of this 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



173 



stream. It is undoubtetUy safe to keep to the line 
drawn by Father ^'entromile, who says here, on the 
Penobscot, was one of the five great villages of the 




five tribes of which the great Abenake family was 
composed. Father Rale, who may be considered as 
unexceptionable authority, gives the name of the 
Penobscot village as Pannaivdnhskek. Nanrantswak, 



174 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

on the Qninebequil, was another. Anmessukkantti 
was the third within the Province of Maine. The re- 
maining two were located in Canada. 

La Hontan mentions the Mahigans (Mohicans), 
Soccokis, and the Openango as nomadic, but says of 
the Abenake that they have ''fixed habitations.'' 
Kidder, who is accepted as the best modern authority, 
places the Tarratines along the Penobscot. According 
to M. Ventromile, the Abenake were an original peo- 
ple, and were possessed of a marked docility of man- 
ners. Their shelters were more elaborate and more 
effective than those of neighboring races, and they 
were more gregarious in their habits. Their dress was 
substantial, modest, and ornamented with their own 
handiwork of shells, beads, belts, and fringes, which 
they wrought out of crude material with much 
artistic skill. They were agriculturalists. Their corn- 
fields were of notable luxuriance. They planted as 
the snows went, and gathered their crops with the 
waning days of August. They were notably pure in 
their morals. These were the Abenake of the days 
when Father Dreuillettes first came among them. 
When he told them they must renounce their strong- 
waters, bury all their hatchets, abandon their medi- 
cine-men, throw away their drums when they came 
among the sick of their tribes, in order to be baptized, 
they consented, making no difficulty of doing away 
with their superstitions. 

Their love for their offspring was great. From its 
birth the balie was swathed in the soft fur of the bear- 
skin, and tenderly nourished; and as soon as the child 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 175 

could stand well braced on its feet it was taught the 
mystery of the bow and arrow, and as the years grew, 
the arts and secret wiles of the chase. They were 
noted for their hospitable characteristics, and, as well, 
for their family attachments. 

In war they were a brave people. Two instances 
are given by M. Yentromile: "Twenty Abenakis 
once entered an English trading-house, either to rest 
or to traffic, when they were surrounded by two hun- 
dred British soldiers, as if to capture them. One 
Abenaki gave the alarm of war, crying, ' We are dead, 
let us sell our lives dearly!' The}' prepared them- 
selves to fall ui3on the British soldiers, who had great 
difficulty to |)acify them. Another time, during the 
war of England and France, thirty Abenaki warriors, 
returning from a military expedition against the 
British, while they unsuspectingly were asleep dur- 
ing the night, were found by a party of British sol- 
diers headed by a colonel who had been on their track. 
The soldiers, six hundred in number, surrounded them, 
certain of their capture, when an Abenaki awoke 
and cried to the others, ' We are dead, let us sell our 
lives dearly!' They arose instantly, formed six divi- 
sions of five men each, and with tomahawk in one 
hand, and a knife in the other, they fell upon the 
l^ritish soldiers with such force and impetuosity, that 
they killed sixty soldiers, including the colonel, and 
dispersed the rest." 

The Tarratines were of symmetric physique — lithe, 
willowy, with well-knit muscles; and, aroused by ill- 
treatment, hardy and resolute in the carrying out of 



176 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

their purpose, and ferociously vengeful in the cruel- 
ties incident to the carrying on of their system of 
savage warfare. Their treacheries were the result of 
their acquaintance with the English, who set them to 
making bricks without straw from the beginning, de- 
moralizing and debauching their integrity with 
watered rum and open cheating. If they were good 
haters of the English settler they were good lovers of 
the French, which was a proof that they could be 
loyal where it was for their interest to be so — wherein 
they were not much different from the common run 
of to-day. 

The Jesuit was the great factor in cementing the 
bond of their loyalty to the French, and it was nat- 
ural that the French should use them in conquest. 
Others would have done the same. Things are not so 
much different in matters of war in later times. Ter- 
ritorial aggrandizement, the quarrels of kings, the 
wild ambitions of politicians, and the sickly barriers 
of effete barbarisms are sufficiently acute causes. It 
may not be that victory is followed by butchery, 
ruddy and indiscriminate, — a savage assault upon Old 
York at break of a winter dawn, the fiery pit of Port 
Arthur, or the trenches of Mukden, — its resultant 
effects are the same. It is a reversal of conditions. It 
seems to be a means, however unjust or disreputa- 
ble, to a desired end, as it was three centuries ago. 
Human greed seems to have come down through the 
generations with its faculties unimpaired, while its 
inventions have multiplied until robbery and oppres- 
sion'are able to go about in the garb of legality. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 177 

That is a brutal way to indict modern civilization, 
but all indictments of society, or the individual, when 
founded in truth, are apt to be productive of discom- 
fort and a certain modicum of mental wriggling and 
squirming. The massacres of Schenectady, Deerficld, 
Salmon Falls, and York were the acme of brutality 
and cruelty — but it was warfare as the savage under- 
stood it. Argall's attack upon the defenseless Jesuits 
at Mont Desert, Hunt's kidnappings, Andros' sack of 
Pentagoet, Waldron's and Frost's treacherous sur- 
prise of two hundred savages whom they had invited 
to witness a mock-fight, and who were afterward sent 
to Boston to be shipped to the Barbadoes to be sold 
as slaves, were fertile sowings on prolific soils. 

It was noted by the French, when they began 
their first occupancy of Acadia, that among the arts 
of the savages was that of communicating by picture- 
writing on the barks or rinds of the forest trees, and 
on stones. Arrow-heads, flints, and coals were used. 
The bark of the birch-tree was their letter-paper, and 
it served them to a very good purpose; and upon it 
they transcribed their messages to neighboring tribes. 
Answers were made upon the same material and 
returned by the dusky runner to the sender. It 
was by such means that war councils were gathered, 
around whose fires tobacco was smoked and deliber- 
ations were held, and it was by such medium that the 
ultimatum was given to the belligerent party. In the 
wigwams of the Abcnake were to be found, frequently, 
collections of hieroglyphic literature, — a kind of li- 
brary, which consisted of bits of bark, stones, and 



178 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



other object-records. The medicine-men had scrolls 
of bark drawn with these singular and uncouth tra- 
cings which they were wont to read to the sick. The 
incident is recalled of the writing on a bit of bark so 
disposed over the stream, the waters of the Kennebec, 
which announced the news of Rale's death to the 








^ 



HIEROGLYPHICS, DAMARISCOTTA 



savage traveller by water, but which proved later to 
be unfounded. It was a form of savage bulletin, and 
was as intelligible to the Abenake as one finds the 
election returns thrown across the street of the metrop- 
olis and limned upon a white screen of an election 
night. 

The Micmacs were notable in this picture-painting, 
and while the Abenake may not have practised it to 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 179 

SO great an extent, yet it was not unknown to them. 
It was a species of picture vocabulary, and with the 
coming of the Jesuits the vocabulary was improved 
and expanded. Among the writings of Father Rale 
some of these hieroglyphics are preserved. Rock- 
writings have been discovered, notably at Manana, 
but no interpretation has been made. The Rosetta 
Stone of the Dighton Rock cryptograms is yet to be 
discovered. 

The Abenake was the mystic of the woods, within 
the shadows of which he made his abode. He was 
keenly observant. From a crease in a fallen leaf, the 
bend of a twig, a wrinkled blade of grass, he read the 
ap])roach of a stranger, the passing of a trespasser, 
whose trail he was able to follow as readily as the 
hound scents the fox. To avoid discovery by others 
equally gifted, their inventions were many. Every 
sense was trained to meet the unexpected. Their 
sense of touch was so acute that they were able to 
designate the points of the compass amid the darkness 
of night by putting their hands to the rinds of the 
trees; and while they possessed little or no knowledge 
of astronomy, they read the hours of the night as an 
illuminated clock-dial. 

The moon was their tim('keej)er from month to 
month. It was their weather-bureau, A pale moon 
meant rain or snow. A reddish moon foretold wind. 
A reclining moon presaged a stormy month, while a 
new moon, from which a powder-horn would slij) its 
string from the lower crescent, bespoke fair weather. 
The moon told them when the rivers would freeze up. 



180 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

and when the spring buds would burst their waxen 
casements. They had a wide knowledge of the sim- 
ples that grew in the woods, and there was healing 
in the rind of some of their trees. They were the 
masters of woodcraft, and their omens and signs at- 
tached to every success or failure. 

They knew the language of the wild creatures of 
the woods, and many of them they revered, especially 
such as they had taken for the totems of their tribes. 
They could call the moose through the hollow of the 
hand. They could gather the crows with the speech 
of the owl. The beaver wrought at their wigwam 
doors. Not a few were their mystic rites and cere- 
monies. They knew 

" All the subtle spirits hiding 
Under earth or wave, abiding 
In the caverned rock, or riding 

Misty clouds or morning breeze ; 
Every dark intelligence, 
Secret soul, and influence 
Of all things which outward sense 

Feels, or hears, or sees," 

through their medicine-man, and 

"These the wizard's skill confessed, 
At his bidding banned or blessed, 
Stormful woke, or lulled to rest 

Wind and cloud, fire and flood; 
Burned for him the drifted snow, 
Bade through ice fresh lilies blow, 
And the leaves of summer grow 

Over winter's wood! " 

Nature was the literature of the savage, unexpur- 
gated and unabridged. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



181 



It was here came an offshoot of traders from that 
first squatter settlement on Cape Cod, for such were 
the Pilgrims, without charter-rights or license. The 
Pilgrim occupancy on the Penobscot dates from 1626- 
27, and it was among the Tarratines,the aborigine un- 




S^^f?ojlt..- 



FROM AN OLD SKETCH 



182 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

sophisticated in tlie ways of the European, that the 
trader Isaac Allerton set up his shop. Here at Penta- 
goet, upon a peninsula of the same name, which 
has, at one time and another, passed under other 
aliases, like Matchebiguatus, Bagaducc, and Penob- 
scot, and now identified as Castine, is a place of much 
historical interest in the early provincial history of 
Maine. It was in 1611 that Biart, who came over to 
Port Royal with Biencourt, found his way hither at 
the solicitation of the great Bessabes, and it was from 
this central point among the Abenake tribes that the 
Jesuit wrought outward. 

For locality it is beautiful of situation, affording an 
ample harbor, which is environed by a wealth of 
scenic attractions, and invested with a continuity of 
subtle charm of land and waterscape, almost unri- 
valled in its constantly changing perspective. Here 
was the once-time theatre of many a stirring episode 
whose yarns have gone into the parti-colored woof of 
its traditions, its legends, and romances; for here was 
where the Wizard of Romance wrought his finest fab- 
rics and his choicest patterns after the coming of 
Baron Castin. 

It was just within the edge of the trapping coun- 
try of the savage, in close contiguity to their villages, 
and by the roadside over which they went from the 
inland to the sea, the mighty Penobscot, and it be- 
came a place greatly resorted to for trade after the 
coming of Allerton. It offered an available site for 
military occupancy, which both English and French 
in turn improved with the varying fortunes of war. 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 183 

As has been noted, it was the Plymouth people, 
acting under the advice of Bradford, who regarded 
it as an eligible place for traffic. This country was a 
bone of contention between the English and the 
French, both countries claiming prior discovery and 
occupation. The former dated their supremacy with 
the advent of the Cabots into the waters of Newfound- 
land, while the latter depended upon the voyage of 
Verrazzano, who followed the Cabots some thirty 
years later. To be sure, Pring was here in 1603, and 
is credited with some acquaintance with the Fox 
Islands in the Penobscot Bay waters, while he was 
followed by Weymouth, in 1605; but it is to be 
doubted seriously if the latter made any exploration 
of the Penol)scot, although he is certain to have been 
at Monhegan and within the Sagadahoc stream. 

It is, however, absolutely certain that De Monts and 
Champlain made the survey of the Penobscot to the 
Kadesquit in the fall of 1604, and Champlain's de- 
lineations and descriptions are the first-known efforts 
at charting the river or the adjoining coa.st. Dc Monts 
possessed himself of Port Royal, St. Croix, Pematiq, 
and Pemetegoet, to which he justified under a char- 
ter from the French Henry 1\. It covered all the 
territory between the fortieth and forty-sixth {jaral- 
lels; or, in other words, the southern limit of the 
F'rench charter was at Delaware l^ay, while the north- 
ern bountl was marked by the Gulf of the St. Law- 
rence. The French charter antedated the iMiglish 
charter by about two years, the latter extending from 
Cape Breton on the north to South Carolina, which 



184 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

was divided between the London and the Plymouth 
companies. 

The settlement at St. Croix may be regarded as of 
a permanent character, whUe the attempt of the Pop- 
ham Colony on the Sagadahoc came and went with 
the snows of a single winter, — that of 1607. Wliat- 
ever claims may be made of the subsequent per- 
manency of the Pemaquid settlement by the '' forty- 
five" of Popham's planters must be regarded as of 
some weight outside of the lively imagination of the 
romancer. The French are credited with an occu- 
pancy of the Penobscot as early as 1555, if the The vet 
narration is to he accepted; and yet there is some 
record of an Ananias at a still earlier date. I appre- 
hend most of those old voyagers outside of Champlain 
drew something of a long bow — not so much with a 
view of deluding people, as of adding something to 
their own stature as accomplishers of incredibilities. 
Smith, truthful in the main, was a romancer of the 
first water; yet he is to be accepted as a truth-teller. 
Levett was not troubled with c^ualms of conscience; 
while Rosier, correct evidently in detail, was not 
averse to covering his fox-trap with ashes; or, in other 
words, deftly covering his footprints. Their prede- 
cessors, Gosnold and Pring, had more to say about 
sassafras, Biscay shallops, and Indians dressed a la 
mode, with an English trip to their tongues, than of 
sounds, bays, and inlets. Unlike the scrutinies of 
Champlain and Lescarbot, they were after a profit- 
able home-lading. In 1621 Sir William Alexander 
procured from James a patent of the immense re- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



185 



gion comprised in these later days by the Provinces 
of New Brunswick, Cape Breton, Prince Edward's 
Island, and Nova Scotia. This last grant covered all 
the colonies of the 
Annapolis Basin — 
being Acadia in 
its entirety almost. 
Prior to the grant 
to Alexander the 
French Jesuits had 
landed on Mont 
Desert and there 
established a mis- 
sion — the same 
which was de- 
stroyed by A]-gall 
in 1613. 

This was the 
condition of Eng- 
lish antl French 
supremacy in tiic 
neighborhood of 
the Penobscot 
River when the 
Plymouth trading- 
post was estab- 
lished. This occu- 
pation of Pentagoet by these first ]^:nglish settlers 
grew out of the impoverished finances of the Plym- 
outh Colony. Colonial bankruptcy stared the little 
settlement in the face. The debts exceeded the 




ISLESBORO SHORE 



186 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

assets, and its exchequer was as dry as a well in a 
sand-pit. It was at this time that a score of energetic 
colonists undertook to retrieve the situation, which 
was one of comniercial inanition. It was certain that 
without some form of lucrative trade the Plymouth 
Colony must starve. Its location was not productive 
of anything but grit, of which there was an abundance, 
and of good equality. This sandy rib of Cape Cod was 
fertile soil for the rugged traits of character which 
made the Puritan and his General Court famous; 
and the rigidity of the Puritan spine is suggestive of 
the stubbed hard pines of the region, that buffeted 
the salt winds from the sea, and held the shifting 
sands of the barren cape to its rocks. 

The control of the settlement trade, its coasting- 
craft, its incident production, vested in these pro- 
moters, was to be compensated for by an annual con- 
tribution to the colony of shoes and stockings to the 
value of fifty pounds, to be paid for in corn at six 
shillings the bushel; or, if the consumer preferred, 
three bushels of corn, or six pounds of tobacco. The 
syndicate w^as going into the peltry business, and 
the contract with the colony, which began with Sep- 
tember, 1627, was to be operative for six years. To 
be exact as to numbers, there were twenty-seven of 
these colonists who had an itching for trade, and, as- 
sociating with themselves four English merchants, 
they called themselves the '' Undertakers." As events 
subsequently developed, this somewhat imposing firm- 
name smacked of prophecy. 

The company employed as their general agent and 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 187 

factor one Isaac Allorton, who takes some prestige 
by being a charter-member of the Mayflower Club, 
and to whom Winthrop caustically alluded as one 
who "set up a company of base fellows, and made 
them traders;'' but Winthrop forgot sometimes to 
wijx' his (juill, and its corroded nib would make black 
marks unwittingly. Allerton was committee on ways 
and means; or, in other words, the travelling, pur- 
chasing, and selling agent, — the animate end of the 
enterprise, which he made immediately profitable. 
A partner in the original scheme, he could hardly 
make money enough to suit his greedy gait, and so 
Ix'gan to transact a bit of trade on his own account, 
witli the result that Ills j)rivate deal was soon inex- 
tricably mixed with that of the "Undertakers." 

The traffic was profitable, the trading-j)ost once es- 
tablished at Pentagoet. The natives were much at- 
tracted by the truck-house, where were displayed, in 
alluring array, coats, shirts, rugs, blankets, wam- 
pum, biscuit, corn, and peas — and rum, of course. 
Beaver, otter, martyn, sable, and other valuable furs 
were procured in abundance, and trade was merry 
indeed. The trading-house was hardly more than a 
block-house, built after the fashion of the times and 
surrounded with a palisade — and it was possibly sit- 
uated on the site of what appears to have been the 
last fort at Pentagoet. It may be safely assumed 
that such was the location, by reason of after events. 
Wampum was an alluring connnodity, f(jr the sav- 
ages were bead worshii)i)ers. after a fashion. It was, 
when woven into a belt, the insignia of authority. 



188 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



and any messenger from one tribe to another, to 
obtain credit, must show the wampum-belt of his 
tribe. It was his letter of credentials. Wampum was 
much coveted, and the brighter and more varied the 
colors of the beads, the less able was the savage to 




AN OLD BLOCKHOUSE 



withstand the temptation. A handful of glass beads 
for a fine sable skin was ample compensation to the 
Indian, and was the source, likewise, of a most extrav- 
agant profit to the trader. Business on the Penob- 
scot was brisk, and Allerton had started so many 
fires on his own account, and had so many pokers 
heating in them, that an assistant became needful. 
By the connivance of the English partners and Aller- 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 189 

ton, Edward Asliley was imported to lend some assist- 
ance in the conduct of the Pentagoet trade. He was 
young in years, but the Plymouth folk knew of little 
in his favor. He made a good appearance, was lively 
and witty, and apparently of excellent ability. They 
credited him with being '' a very profane younge man, 
who had lived amonge ye Indians as a savage, and 
wente naked amongste them and used their maners." 
Ashley's accjuaintancc with the language of the sav- 
ages was in his favor, and made him an exceeding 
valuable factor in the business. It was possibly his 
chief stock in trade. Appearing on the scene two 
years after the establishment of the trading-post, 
1629, he very soon came to take the entire charge of 
the Penobscot trade. The business became so very 
lucrative that the Plymouth partners began to dis- 
trust his honesty, and selecting Thomas Willet, who 
was originally from Lcydcn, in whose discretion and 
integrity they had unlimited confidence, they sent 
him down to Pentagoet to look after their interests 
and to keep A.shley "in some good measure within 
bounds." He was in reality the watch-dog of the 
Pilgrims. 

Ships came over from England laden w'ith goods, 
and grain was sent from Plymouth, and the trade in- 
creased so that large iiuantitics of beaver and other 
fine furs were accumulated, which, as it turned out, 
came to be of little advantage to the Plymouth part- 
ners. Ashley ignored the liabilities of the company to 
the Plymouth men for supplies and commodities 
used in this growing trade with the savages, but 



190 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

shipped direct to the English merchants the consid- 
erable stores of furs, still obtaining from Cape Cod 
such goods as the settlement was wont to supply. 
This was not satisfactory or pleasing to the Plymouth 
partners and, with their lack of confidence in the 
fellow at the start, was not productive of favor 
toward him. For all this inattention to their rights 
they were compelled to contribute a vessel and man 
it for the furtherance of the Penobscot traffic. It was 
apparent that Ashley was too alert for the Hollander, 
at least for the space of a year or more; but Willet 
bethought himself of a snare, and he laid it. Like the 
rabbit-hunter going the rounds of his bended twigs, 
to here or there make a more delicate adjustment of 
his loops and wires, Willet kept to his scrutiny of 
Ashley's dealings. Ashley '' was taken in a trape for 
trading powder and shote with ye Indians," accord- 
ing to Bradford. This was a flagrant violation of 
the proclamation of the Crown, and by reason of 
which the authorities levied on a half-ton of beaver 
which Ashley had not had time to ship. The Plym- 
outh partners showed that Ashley had given bond 
in the sum of five hundred pounds '' not to trade any 
munition with ye Indeans, or otherwise to abuse him- 
self e;" and thereby the beaver was saved from con- 
fiscation. It was, however, the means of terminating 
Ashley's connection with the post at Pentagoet, and 
of sending him to the Fleet in London. 

The discharge of Allerton followed. His own mat- 
ters were so tangled with those of the '' Undertakers," 
and the losses were so apparent, that nothing else was 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 191 

to be done. From Penobscot Allciton went to the 
Kennebec, where he set up a truck-house and made 
some inroad on the Pentagoet trade. Afterward he 
was in trade with Richard ^'ines, and appears to 
have done some business at Machias, whence he was 
ousted by La Tour, after which he seems to have 
found a deserved obscurity. 

Allerton and his tool disposed of, the Pentagoet 
truck-house was managed by the "Undertakers," and 
under their control was made to give immense annual 
returns. It was not to be expected that with the 
knowledge of the accumulating traffic at Pentagoet 
the French would not make some effort to secure a 
portion of th(> fur trade which the English had been 
constantly drawing away from them. It was in 1631 
the first ripple showed on the hitherto placid stream 
of their commerce. 

The Pentagoet factor had one morning taken most 
of his servants, going after some goods whicli had 
been brought over from England, and which had been 
deposited elsewhere. Th(> post had Ix'cn left in charge 
of four servants, who were to attend to the preserva- 
tion of the place. It was not long before a barque 
came up the river with the wind. It was a party of 
Frenchmen under Rosillon. They came to land, and, 
making something of a scrutiny of the premis(>s with 
an excess of French politeness, they discovered that 
Pentagoet was at their disposal. At the first they 
were strangers in a strange country; they had been 
unfortunate — their vessel had sprung a leak, and 
they had come in search of a place to beach her so 



192 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

they might put safely to sea. There was along with 
this pirate crew a Scotchman. Through him the 
French learned the state of affairs, and by a ruse of 
curiosity they got the fire-arms into their possession, 
whereupon they compelled the servants of the com- 
pany to carry the goods in the truck-house, in fact 
everything they could lay their hands to, to their 
vessel — which included three hundred pounds of 
beaver. Having looted the place, the freebooters 
sent the servants ashore, when their captain thanked 
them for their kindly courtesy, and bade them tell 
the trader when he returned that "some of the Isle 
of Rhe gentlemen had been there." It was at the 
Isle of Rhe, but five years earlier, that the French 
had defeated the Duke of Buckingham. The applica- 
tion was clear. This war had been terminated in 
1629, but the treaty was not fully entered into until 
the early part of 1632, at Germain en Laye. It was by 
this treaty that the country of Pentagoet was ceded 
to France, being, as it was considered, the southern 
limit of Acadia. 

The '^ Undertakers" paid no attention to the treaty, 
but kept to their selling of wampum and buying of 
pelts, — it is so difficult to part with a good sup when 
you have it, though your stomach be full. 

The treaty closed, Isaac de Razilli was made Gov- 
ernor of Acadia. He assumed his dignities at once 
(1632) . Two years later he erected a fort at La Have, 
on the Nova Scotia coast, but it was not until 
1635 that he assumed jurisdiction over the entirety 
of Acadia. He divided his jurisdiction between his 




THE FLUME, ROCKLAND BREAKWATER 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 193 

two lieutenant-generals, Charles Amador de St. 
Estienne, Sieur de la Tour, who held to the north- 
east of the St. Croix, including all the Fundy shore, 
and Charles de Menou, Seigneur d'Aulnay de Chairn- 
say, whose command was to the southwest of the St. 
Croix. And here begins the romance of the La Tours. 
D'Aulnay pitched his camp first upon the site of the 
De Monts settlement at the Island of the Holy Cross. 
It was in the year 1635 that he established him- 
self at Pentagoet, but not without some contention, 
for the Plymouth traders had to be driven away 
by force. 

Bradford relates the incident: " Monsier de Aulnay 
coming into ye harbore of Penobscote, and having 
before gott some of ye chief yt belonged to ye house 
abord his vessell, by sutly coming upon them in their 
shalop, he gott them to pilote him in." 

Once in the truck-house D'Aulnay made proclama- 
tion of possession in the name of France. 

" But the goods?" said AVillet, the agent. 

''I will take the goods of you," was the reply. 

''I cannot relinquish them." 

"You will relinquish them at a valuation, — " 

"I must have them for my trade." 

"You cannot trade here: this is Frencli teriitory; I 
have taken possession by authority; your traffic in this 
place is at an end. You shall be paid for your goods." 

"If I am compelled to sell them I can make no re- 
sistance." 

" I will fix the prices, and if you will come for the 
pay in a convenient time, you shall receive it." 



194 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

" You will pay mc for the house and fortification?" 

''That is a different matter. Those who will build 
on another man's ground do forfeit the same. I can 
say nothing for the buildings." 

Here was English tenacity; but the Frenchman 
had the whi])-hand and the Plymouth man was en- 
tirely in the wrong, yet he was showing the feathers 
that ever ruffled the Puritan crest when disturbed at 
the feast, actual or prospective. D'Aulnay gave Wil- 
let his shallop and sufficient provision so that he got 
to Boston safely, where a tempest in a teapot was 
soon started, with the result that the Massachusetts 
Bay folk furnished a vessel, the Great Hope, w^hicli 
was under the command of "one Girling," who had 
made a contingent contract with the Plymouth part- 
ners, in which one catches the Willet accent. It was 
a shrewd bargain, in the which Girling would " deliver 
them ye house (after he had driven out, or surprised 
ye French,) and give them peacable possession thereof, 
and of all such trading commodities as should there be 
found; and give ye French fair quarter and usage, if 
they would yield." The contingent consideration was 
seven hundred pounds of beaver, deliverable when 
the contract was completed. To see that the business 
was properly supported, Myles Standish, doughty 
and warlike, went along in his own private yacht 
with about twenty men, not only to lend some dig- 
nity to the enterprise, but as well to hand over the 
beaver on the occasion of success, which he took along 
to si)ur Girling to great deeds. 

The weather was propitious. The voyage was rich 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 195 

with good omen, and Girling's heart beat high in his 
heroic chest. When afar off he began to thunder 
away with his big guns, as if in his desire for " fair 
usage" he wished to give the doomed garrison ample 
time to withdraw, or to put itself into a better state 
of defense. Up the river came Girling, his guns still 
belching thunderous volleys at the innocent woods, 
making the echoes fly. So sailed the Great Hope into 
the harbor of Pentagoet, her great guns pounding 



Sf(^(L^ 




'WmVL. ^rai^jwtL 



the air with great l)l()ws, so that Standish could not 
get oi)portunity to summon the French to a surrender. 
Girling was an expert in war, and his bombardment of 
Pentagoet was like the blowing of horns before Jericho, 
only the walls of Pentagoet failetl to fall. Standish, 
said Girling, " begane to shoot at a distance like a 
madd man," the while the French kej)t to their 
trenches above the resounding shores. 

Girling kept to his guns, and the Frenchmen to 
their cover, until the Good Hope had no more pow- 
der for her guns, nor any with which to get back to 
Boston in case she should fall in with aiiv from the 



196 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Isle of Rhe. He was at last driven to the support of 
Captain Standish for the replenishing of his maga- 
zine, which the latter undertook to supply from Pem- 
aquid. Girling was something of a pirate himself, and 
it has been said that, having got the powder, he in- 
tended as well to possess himself of the seven hun- 
dred pounds of beaver in Standish's barque; or, in 
other words, "t ceise on ye barke and surprise ye 
beaver." Standish sailed away to Pemaquid, and, 
sending Girling the powder, set his sails for Boston, 
thereby saving his vessel and his skins. 

It was a glorious expedition and reminds one of 
Old Tarleton's song : 

"The King of France went up the hill, 
With twenty thousand men; 
The King of France came down the hill, 
And ne'er went up again." 

What became of Girling after this is uncertain, and 
Bradford makes moan, ''Ye enterprise was made 
frustrate and ye French incouraged." With this 
Acadia passed into the possession of the French, who 
occupied it and profited much in trade, but more in 
the sway they were able to maintain over the savages 
when, in later years, the Indian Wars broke out. Un- 
til 1654 the French held the place undisputed. 

This was the first battle of the Penobscot — blood- 
less, inglorious; but had D'Aulnay known the fero- 
cious Girling he might have spared the waste of so 
much good powder. 

Razilli was dead, and the contest was on between 
D'Aulnay and La Tour for the supremacy of com- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 197 

mand in Acadia. It was the beginning of a lifelong 
quarrel, which was nursed and carefully cherished by 
both leader and adherent. D'Aulnay was Catholic, 
while La Tour was Protestant. Massachusetts Bay 
favored the latter, and so far connived with him as to 
allow him to hire four vessels and sufficient men to 
man them. La Tour set out for the St. Croix with the 
four vessels and a complement of eighty men, and it 
was this attack that sent D'Aulnay to the Penob- 
scot in 1635. The latter occupied Pentagoet after the 
withdrawal of Girling until 1643. unmolested, in which 
year La Tour again undertook to capture D'Aulnay. 
He appeared in force before the place, but D'Aulnay 
had retired to the old mill of Pentagoet, where he forti- 
fied himself and awaited the assault. La Tour led 
the attack, which was a spirited one; but other than 
the loss of three men on each side, and the burning of 
the mill and the destruction of some standing corn, 
the results were unimportant. 

La Tour retired with his forces, and the following 
year D'Aulnay had rebuilt the fort, and supposedly 
on the site of the former trading-house, the fact of 
which coming to the ears of La Tour, with the further 
information that the place was slenderly manned, 
the latter sent the notorious Wannerton of Piscataqua, 
with some others antl some twenty of his own men, to 
capture Pentagoet. D'Aulnay had a farmliouse some 
six miles away from the fort, and by some it has been 
located at what is now Winslow's Cove, in the town of 
Penobscot. La Tour's party found their way to the 
farmliouse, which was approached by Wannerton 



198 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

and an insignificant party of two or three as a re- 
connoitering-line. The farmhouse was apparently 
abandoned. The skies were serene, and the sunlight 
dropped into the clearing to curl the dusky green 
corn-leaves into Pipes o' Pan, or lay across the river 
in folds of glimmering heat, or dipped its slant shafts 
into the cooling deeps of the woodland beyond. The 
herds of D'Aulnay browsed ruminantly along the 
edge of the open lands, or stood knee-deep in the 
lapping tide where the cove shallowed to its grassy 
marge. The chimneys of the farmliouse were smoke- 
less. It was the drowsing of a summer noon, that 
unsuspicious hour in Nature when all things seem to 
sleep. 

Perhaps D'Aulnay had caught some warning of the 
approach of the invader, and had sought the obscurity 
of the woods. Over the narrow trail La Tour's men 
had come, and Wannerton was at last at the door of 
the farmliouse. He tapped against the sturdy lintel. 
It swung apart, and from it came two musket-shots, 
one of which killed the predatory Wannerton out- 
right, and wounded another of his party. The retal- 
iation was swift, for one of the party returned the 
fire, and Wannerton's slayer paid the penalty of his 
loyalty to D'Aulnay. At this, the La Tour force came 
up on the run, and, making a dash, were at once in 
possession of the farmliouse. D'Aulnay's men were 
made prisoners. Finding nothing else upon which to 
expend their enmity, they killed the cattle and then 
put the farmhouse to the torch, after w^hich they 
made their way to their ship and sailed away to Bos- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



199 



ton. It was a war of reprisal, in wliich it soemod to 
be D'AuInay who was the sufferer. 

In the following autumn a peace was concluded 
between D'Aulnay and Governor John Endicott; but 
for all that, Massachusetts winked at the Protestant 
La Tour and for a consideration loaned him ships to 
convey to his St. Croix fort the supplies needed to 




CAMDEN HILLS 

enable him to maintain his footing at that j)oint. 
This was from D'Aulnay's point of view a breach of 
the treaty, and he at once cast aside his garment of 
peace and started out upon the seas to capture such 
vessels as he found trading with La Tour. La Tour 
discovered that the Penobscot wasp had a long sting, 
and he concluded to let D'Aulnay's nest at Pentagoet 
alone. From that to D'Aulnay's death, in 1651, the 
latter was left in (|uiet possession of the Penobscot 
waters. 

After D'Aulnay's death La Tour again turned his 
eyes with a covetous longing toward the truck-house 



200 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

and farming-lands where formerly D'Aulnay held 
sway. D'Aulnay dead, the bitter quarrel was at an 
end; but D'Aulnay left a charming widow, endowed 
with all the charms and fascinations of a mature 
womanhood, which, to La Tour, were like spring- 
time promises. Both these Frenchmen were members 
of the nobility; while those under them were of the 
peasantry. They were hardly better than serfs, fight- 
ing or keeping the peace as did their masters, des- 
perately ignorant, wholly depraved, dyed in the dregs 
of superstition; but La Tour broke the barrier to 
storm the castle of his fair lady, and with such brave 
success that a year after her husband's death Lady 
D'Aulnay became the seductive Madame La Tour. 
One imagines the romance that filled the heart of 
La Tour, the fond dreams that kept pace with 
his waking hours, and the like lively ambitions to 
possess himself of the wide domain between the St. 
Croix and the Penobscot. His wooing sped on golden 
wings, and what he was unable to accomplish by war 
he wrought by the alchemy of love, and La Tour was 
at last master of all Acadia. One hears him shout 
exultantly, as he bears his prize of beauty from her 
lonely home by the shadows of Pentagoet : 

" ' To the winds give our banner! 

Bear homeward again ! ' 
Cried the Lord of Acadia, 

Cried Charles of Estienne ; 
From the prow of his shallop 

He gazed as the sun, 
From its bed in the ocean, 

Streamed up the St. John." 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 201 

Pentagoet was maintained as a military post, but 
La Tour had his residence at St. John. He was at 
last at the summit of his ambitions, but it was not to 
last for long. His tenure of peaceful occupation was 
limited to two short j'ears. 

After the accession of Cromwell, the discontent of 
the English over the relinquishment of Acadia to the 
French, and a desire to give to the Papist influence, 
which there prevailed, a decisive check, the Pro- 
tector directed an attack on Pentagoet, and the place 
was again under the English domination. The French 
domination of the river had been a thorn in the flesh 
of the Puritan since the ousting of Willet, who had 
struck up a lucrative trade at that place. The French 
under D'Aulnay were not so energetic as had been the 
Puritan traders, his attention being given to main- 
taining a military despotism rather than a trading- 
post. It was D'Aulnay who taught the Indians the 
use of the musket; who, after the English Ashley, 
supplied the savages with what was to make them 
within the next generation a dreaded enemy. This 
was in 1654, and for thirteen years after, the English 
were in control, during the latter part of which a bit- 
ter conflict arose between England and France, by 
reason of which the Province of Nova Scotia, by the 
Treaty of Breda, July 31, 1667, was surrendered to 
the French. The following year, in February, the 
whole of Acadia was ceded to the French, in which 
Pentagoet was set out specifically as the southern 
boundary-line. But the English were slow in the giv- 
ing up of their foothold, t^lse the French were tardy in 



202 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

their movements of acquiring possession; for it was 
not until three years later that Captain Walker was 
called upon by Monsieur Hubert d'Andigny, Chev- 
alier de Grandfontaine, to deliver the place into his 
hands. 

During the English occupancy Cromwell issued a 
patent to Stephen de la Tour, a son of the Lord of 
St. John, Sir Thomas Temple, and William Crowne, 
confirming in them the territory of Acadia. This was 
in 1656, and included the Penobscot country. A lit- 
tle later La Tour disposed of his interest to his co- 
patentees, and Colonel Temple left Pentagoet to the 
command of Captain Thomas Predion. 

A ciuotation from Sir Thomas Temple's letter to 
the Lords of the Council, of the date of November 24, 
1668, — for with the death of Cromwell came the acces- 
sion of Charles IL, by which the acts of the Cromwel- 
lian Commonwealth were abrogated, — is of impor- 
tance as making up a part of the history of the local- 
ity. Colonel Temple writes : '' May it please your Lord- 
ships, 'T is my duty to acquaint you that I received 
his Majesty's Letter dated the 31st of December, 1667, 
for the delivering up of the Country of Acadia, the 
20th of October, 1668, by Monsieur MoriUon du Bourg, 
deputed by the most Christian King, under the Great 
Seal of i^m^fp, to recieve the same; . . . I thought fit 
also to let your Lordships know, that those Ports and 
Places named in my first order, were a part of one of 
the Colonies of New England, viz: Pentagoet, belong- 
ing to Neiv Plymouth, which has given the Magis- 
trates here (Boston, probably, and from whence this 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



20: 



letter was undoubtedly written,) great Cause of Fear, 
and Apj)rehensions of so potent a Neighbor, wliich 
may be of dangerous Consequence to his Majesty's 
Service and Subjects, the Carribee Islands having 
most of their Provisions from these Parts, and Mons 
du Bourg, informs me that the most Christian King 
int(>nd(Ml to plant a Colony at Pentagoet, and make a 




OWL S HEAD LIGHT 

Passage by Land to Quebec, his greatest Town in 
Canada, being but three Day's Journey distant." 

Colbert, in his letter of instruction to Grandfon- 
taine, advises the latter, "that he ought particularly 
to stick to Pentagoet, the restitution of which has 
always been demanded by his most (^hristian ^hijesty, 
as well as the forts uj)()n the St. John. . . . The said 
Sieur de Grandfontaine. having obtained this resti- 
tution, and having Ixrn put in possession of the said 
territory, will be able in hi.s discretion and prudence 



204 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

to decide where he will make his principal establish- 
ment — which it appears to us ought to be at Penta. 
goet, as being the place nearest the territory under 
the English rule, and where he will be better able to 
support and protect the lands under the rule of his 
Majesty, which are, as has been said before, extend- 
ing towards the north, from the middle of Penta- 
goet, as far as Cape Breton. (This suggestion on the 
part of Colbert was equivalent to a command.) 

"And when the Sieur de Grandfontaine shall be 
settled he ought to pay great attention in regard to 
putting himself promptly in a state of defense, and 
protecting himself against all the accidents which 
might happen in the course of time and affairs, by for- 
tifying himself and providing himself with everything 
necessary for that purpose — for which, besides that 
already furnished him, his Majesty will provide for 
what more will be necessary for him in the memo- 
randa of them which he will take care to send." 

Sieur de Grandfontaine is authorized to use all the 
forces which may be given him to increase and 
strengthen the traffic that may be made " either for 
permanent or transient fishing, dressing of furs, erect- 
ing of dwellings, tillage of lands, or such other things 
as they desire to attempt there — and that without 
the exclusion of anyone, allowing full and entire lib- 
erty to all subjects of his said Majesty, to go and come, 
and to carry on such traffic as they shall wish; but 
interdicting and taking away this same freedom of 
trade and residence from all strangers, unless they 
are provided with an express order of the King.' ' 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 205 

The English arc expressly excluded, unless thcywill 
swear allegiance to the king, — taking an oath of fidel- 
ity and submission to His Majesty such as good and 
faithful subjects ought to make and keep. Colbert's 
information of the country seems to be extensive and 
fairly accurate, and his geographical knowledge is well 
founded. He suggests that communication should be 
opened with Canada and the St. Lawrence, and that 
it should be by the St. John River, or from Pentagoet 
by way of the Saute, otherwise called the Chaudiere. 
He is to lo.se no time in doing thi.s, and is to enlist in 
his aid the ''Savages" of the region. He is to keep in 
constant touch with De Courcelles, the Governor and 
Lieutenant-General of Canada, also M. Talon, In- 
tendant of the Canadas, and to follow their advice in 
all matters. Here was the beginning of that policy 
that united the savage to the French cause and inter- 
est, and behind which lay a definite purpose, in the 
fulfilment of which the English were to be driven 
from New England ultimately. Colbert was a mas- 
ter-plotter, almost a second Richelieu, and his de- 
signs were deep and vast for New P'rance. 

That De Grandfontaine should develop Pentagoet 
was imperative. Colbert left him no other alterna- 
tive. He says: "And supposing — what is not to be 
believed — that the said Sieur de Grandfontaine finds 
insurmountable obstacles to the restitution of the 
country above mentioned, and to taking possession 
of it, he must know that it would not be expedient for 
the service of his Majesty, that he should return to 
France, with tlie people who shall be placed under 



206 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

his command; but that ho ought to endeavor to take 
a position in some place, upon the said coast of Acadia, 
either at La Heve, or such other place as he shall 
judge fit, in order to give an account of his anxieties, 
and of the difficulties that he will have met in the 
execution of his orders, whereupon his Majesty will 
let him know what he shall do." 

These steps were not only taken to emphatically 
mark the Penol^scot as the boundary on the west of 
the French possessions, but as well to afford a place 
of offense and defense against the English in the con- 
flict which was about to begin between the English 
and the Indians, who were being actively fomented 
l^y the Jesuits, who had at that time made some con- 
siderable advance into the wilderness, where they had 
taken great pains, along with the tenets of their re- 
ligion, to impress the Indian that the French were 
their natural brothers; that the English were to be 
extirpated; and that whatever they might do in 
driving them from the country would redound to 
their future salvation. They taught the savages that 
the mother of Christ was a French woman, and that 
the English hated her and would not worship her. 
This and other religious fallacies were instilled into 
the Indian mind. This was apparently the mission 
of Thury at Pentagoet, who, of all the Jesuits, was 
the most ferocious and bloodthirsty. There had been 
an abundant seedtime, and the harvest was about to 
be reaped with a ruddy sickle. 

When the English turned the Pentagoet fort over 
to the French it hatl l:)een made into a somewhat 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



207 



formidable barrier. What its actual extent was at 
the time of the surrender was fairly well outlined in 
the report of De Grandfontaine, Jean Maillard, and 
Richard Walker. The report contains this descrip- 




=r? r 






^T) 






d 



I^rl Pc-itap^ib 



'^"""^'lj"'|i|'MiilinliH||ln||jj 








tion: "First, at the entering in of the said Fort upon 
the left Hand, we found a Court of Guard (guard- 
house) of about fifteen Paces long, and ten broad, 
having upon the right Hand a House of the like 
Length and Breadth, built with hewen Stone, and 
covered with Shingles, and above them there is a 



208 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Chapel of about six Paces long, and four Paces broad, 
covered with Shingles, and built with Terras, (pdtie 
sur une terrasse,) upon which there is a small Turret, 
wherein there is a little Bell, weighing about eighteen 
Pounds. 

" More, upon the left Hand as we entered into the 
Court, there is a Magazine, having two Stories, built 
with Stone, and covered with Shingles, being in 
Length about thirty-six Paces Long, and ten in 
Breadth, which Magazine is very old, and wanted 
much Reparation, and which there is (a) little Cellar, 
wherein there is a Well. 

''And upon the other Side of said Court, being on 
the right Hand, as we enter into the said Court, there 
is a House of the same Length and Breadth as the 
Magazine is, being half covered with Shingles, and the 
rest uncovered, and wanted much Reparation." 

Upon the ramparts were mounted twelve iron guns, 
of which two were eight-pounders ; six, six-pounders ; 
two, four-pounders; and two, three-pounders, with six 
murtherers. These constituted the armament turned 
over by Ca])tain Walker. Outside the fort was the 
barn for the cattle, and not far from that was a gar- 
den which contained fifty or sixty trees that bore 
fruit. This garden was fenced in. The fort had four 
bastions, well flanked, "which bastions, taking them 
as far as the verge of the terrace inside, are sixteen 
feet." On the inside the terraces were eight feet high. 

The chapel, with its slender steeple and its eighteen- 
pound bell, was that of " Our Lady of Holy Hope," 
but not much is known of the clergy who officiated 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 209 

at its huml)l(^ altar. It could not have been Father 
Thury, as he did not come here until two or three years 
later; but that there were services, and that the' mel- 
low tones of the chapel bell broke the sUences that 
hugged the river's edge with the breaking of the dawn, 
and, as well, waftetl a tuneful message to the setting 
sun as the vespers rang, is not to be doubted. And 
the priest went in and out among his flock, 

"with pallid cheeks and thin, 
-Much given to vigils, penance, fasting, prayer, 

Solemn and gray, and worn with discipline, 
As if his boily but white ashes were. 

Heaped on tlie living coals that glowed within," 

blessing the child of the Church and hating and cur.s- 
ing the heretic alike. 

Here was the setting of a j^astoral scene, but for 
the fort that cast its shadow, in the marge of the river; 
and how unlike that of Rale at Xorridgewock! There' 
in the silence of the wootlland deeps Rale's bell lent 
its alien notes to the awaking of the birds at dawn, 
an I for the bastions of Fort Pentagoet were the clus- 
tered wigwams, and for the frowning guns on the 
ramparts were the low-hanging limbs of the hem- 
locks draped with tlu> festooning mosses that hung 
from th(>m like the beards of a druid race, each one a 
phantom woodland sprite that wanted only a breath 
of wind to set it to dancing to the inaudible music of 
the air. This was Rale's environment. Xo white sails 
of ships blew up the Kennel)ec — only the birchen 
shell of the bark canoe knew this wiid and lonely 
stream. 



210 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



With the gray bastions frowning above the river, 
the little chapel, perched almost upon the top of the 
rampart, like a sentry-box, afforded a pertinent sug- 
gestion of the militancy of the Jesuit, so far as the 
English heretic might be concerned. The musket, 
the tomahawk, and the torch went along with the 
priest and his crucifix. The entire lack of a moral up- 
building of the savage wherever the Jesuit established 




TRASK'S ROCK, BLOCKHOUSE HEAD 



his mission is the unanswerable arraignment of his 
sincerity. The work at Pentagoet was allied to that 
of Norridgewock in a way, but until the coming 
of Castine the history of the Jesuit Mission was the 
slender history of the French occupancy and meagre 
settlement of D'Aulnay, Grandfontaine, and Chambly. 
To the Jesuit is to be charged the ferocity of the 
savage, as he made his depredations upon the Eng- 
lish settler. That the savage mind was susceptible of 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 211 

devilish manipulation was evident from the atrocities 
committed by the savage children of the Jesuit faith, 
and there seems to have been no moral value to the 
Jesuit's labors, arduous as they have been described 
to have been. The personal interests of the priest, 
and the political benefits to be derived from the ad- 
hesion of the savage to the French cause, were ap- 
])arently the only results; for there was certainly no 
advance along the lines of civilization, as civilization 
is commonly taken. The savage was a tool, and a 
rude one at that, by which a way was to be hewn 
through the English settlement after it had been re- 
duced to the gray ashes of devastation for the aggran- 
dizement of the French, whose morals of humanity 
were not less brutal than those of the savage whose 
l)assions they fanned into fiame. Even at Xorridge- 
wock, where Rale had undoubted and unlimited sway, 
"the consequences were equal to the means," as Lin- 
coln says. 

The Protestants did not nuich better. The famed 
Eliot, the first English evangelist to go among the 
Indians, o])ene(l the way for others; and for all the 
English Parliament, in 1649, created a company which 
acquired some considerable funds for the purpose of 
supporting a dozen or more missionaries in the Indian 
field, which it did, the savage kept his vices and his 
nomad ways of living, alike. 

He was the wildling of the woods that was averse to 
l)lanting — a wildling in his instincts and in his incli- 
nations. Such he was when the Frenchman found 
him, and he was no more when the Jesuit landed the 



212 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

sore remnant of the great Abenake race on the shores 
of the Chaudiere — to be annihilated, in 1759, by the 
rangers of Robert Rogers at the sack of St. Francis 
de Sales. 

. Grandfontaine remained at Pentagoet four years, 
and of all the matters of which he wrote during that 
time, what one likes best is that he said, "The air 
here is very good." One has only to get a sniff of the 
river breeze to l^e reminded of that remark of the 
French officer. Here was the land of the pine, as it is 
to-day, where they, as of old, 

"Uplift their fretted summits tipped with cones. 
The arch beneath them is not built with stones; 
Not art, but Nature, traced these lovely lines, 
Antl carved this graceful arabesque of vines; 
No organ but the wind here sighs and moans, 
No sepulchre conceals a martyr's bones. 
Enter! the pavement, carpeted with leaves. 

Gives back a softened echo to thy tread! 
Listen! the choir is singing; all the birds. 
In leafy galleries beneath the eaves, 

Are singing! listen, ere the sound be fled, 
And learn there may be worship without words." 

To Grandfontaine it was all of this, perhaps; and it 
may have been but a wild, lone place, whose environ- 
ing wilderness was a thrall from which he sought re- 
lease. 

It was in 1673 that Chambly succeeded Grandfon- 
taine, who gives the population of two years before 
as thirty-one. These must have been largely the 
soldiery, as later there was but one French family. 
It was, however, a most distinguished one. The year 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



213 



following the coming of Ciiambly, one John Rhoadcs, 
hiding his nationality under a successful disguise, 
came into the fort. He remained here some four 
days, and, having gained such information as he came 
after, got away without detection. A little later, the 
Flying Horse, under Flemish colors, bowled up-stream 
under a good wind and dropped anchor off the fort. 
There were two hundred men in her crew, and thev 




WHERE THE ENGLISH LANDED IN 1779 



immediately invested the garrison. For an hour 
Chambly made a brave resistance, getting a bullet in 
his shoulder which put him out of the fight. The fort 
gave way, and the marauders, Dutch and English, 
for Rhoades was among the j)irate crew, jiillaged the 
place, taking away all the guns, and as well Chaml)ly 
and Marson, the chief officers. The Flying Horse was 
evidently from New York, for Governor Leverett 
writes in a letter of August 24, 1674 : " Our neigh- 
bors, the Dutch, have been very neighborly since they 
had ccrtaiiie intelligence of the peace. One of their 



214 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

captains have bin upon the French forts, taken Penob- 
scot, with loss of men on both sides; what they have 
done further east, we understand not." 

Chambly wrote the story of the adventure to Fron- 
tenac, at Quebec, which is given in the words of the 
latter: 

" What I have learned, from a letter that Monsieur 
Chambly has written me, is that he was attacked by 
a crew of buccaneers, who had just come from St. 
Domingo, and who had crossed over from Boston, 
with one hundred and ten men, who after landing, 
kept up their attack for an hour, 

''He received a musket-shot through the body, 
that compelled him to leave the field, and which also 
injured his ensign; and the rest of his garrison which, 
with the inliabitants, was composed of only thirty 
disaffected and badly armed men, surrendered at dis- 
cretion. The pirates have pillaged the fort, carrying 
away all the guns; and while they ought to have 
brought Monsieur Chambly to Boston with Monsieur 
Marson, he has been taken to the St. John's River, 
by a detachment who hold him as a ransom, and wish 
to make him pay a thousand beavers." 

Frontenac closes his letter thus : "1 am persuaded 
that these people from Boston have employed these 
men there to do us this injury, they having given them 
even an English pilot to conduct them, they impa- 
tiently enduring our neighborhood, and the fear which 
this gives them for their fisheries and their trade." 

Frontenac colored his report to suit his inclination, 
which was to so far as he could embroil the English 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 215 

with the savages. There is no doubt but much was 
winked at in Massachusetts Bay where the interests 
of the French were discussed adversely. The same 
spirit that aided La Tour in his forays against D'Aul- 
nay was rife along the Boston wharvTs. But Cham- 
bly was ransomed, and the fort at Pentagoet rehabili- 
tated, only to be again captured and pillaged by the 
Dutch two years later. Boston was encouraged by 
the prowess of the Dutch and sent out a foray of her 
own, but its success was of the same order as that of 
Girling and the redoubtable Standish in the time of 
D'AuInay. 

This is the story of ancient Pentagoet; and if one 
could go back to those days, to have the scroll of its 
life unrolled and its unknown, undreamed of, and 
unwritten romance and tragedy revealetl, to see out 
of the low hummocks of the ruins of old Fort Penta- 
goet — which may even now be faintly discerned by 
the river-bank — the bastioned walls again take 
shape, and to hoar from the chapel-tower the flying 
notes of the little bell, one would glean a harvest 
worth the sickle. They are long-gone days when 
Thevet begins his romancing of the French settle- 
ment up among the Penobscot pines, but which, like 
the Hochelaga of Cartier, has the elusive character 
of the raii>l)ow. 

If one were a wizard, so that 

■■ Touched by his hand, the wayside weed 
Becomes a flower; the lowliest reed 

Beside the stream 
Is clothed with beauty," 



216 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

one would build up the pine woods again, and the 
garish-hued roofs of the summer cottage would melt 
away into the dense verdure of the forest, and under 
the shelving bank where the beaver was cutting wood 
and the mink was doing a bit of trout-fishing one 
would wait for the coming of Champlain's voyagers 
for a lift to the home of the Bessahez. What an outing 
for an August vacation! — and the wild shores what a 
picture-gallery, with leaves, and limbs, and huge boles 
of tree-trunks, and wrinkled ripples of the tide along 
the river-banks for brush-marks, slashed and crossed 
by purple shadows such as the sun paints up and 
down the aisles of the woods! And the arrows of 
silence shot from the woodland solitudes, — they have 
pinned the vagrant winds, after they have swept the 
sky of its clouds, to the sleeping waters, so that one 
seems sailing through the blue depths of the u})per 
air rimmed by another woodland in the deeps of the 
river. One would have enjoyed the feasting and danc- 
ing of the Tarratines down by the mouth of the 
Kadesquit, a taste of the venison served al fresco, 
an after-dinner smoke with the Sagamores, and the 
after-dinner speeches. 

One lights his fragrant pipe at the thought of it, 
for the Indian weed begets dream fantasies; and while 
the fire crackles, and the smoke curls upward from the 
well-filled bowl, 

"the steepled town no more 
Stretches its sail-thronged shore; 
Like palace domes in sunset's cloud, 
Fade suu-gilt spire and mansion proud; 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTIX 217 

Spectrally rising where they stood, 

I see the oKl primeval wood; 

Dark, shadow-hke, on either hand 

I see its solemn waste expand: 

It climbs the green and cultured hill. 

It arches o'er the valley's rill, 

And leans from cliff and crag, to throw 

Its wild arms o'er the stream below. 

Unchanged, alone, the same bright river 

Flows on, as it will flow forever." 

Beside it are the elu.'^teretl wigwams of the Tarra- 
tine. Wisps of smoke blow outward over the fiood of 
the Penobscot, savory with the resinous odors of 
steaming pitch saps, sweetened with the mystery of 
the spitted veni.son roasting over the lodge-fires. 
Along with the smokes of the wildwootl, the light 
birchen canoes dance upon the mirroring waters, and 
the isolation of the picture is lost in its rude life. 
Champlain's little banjue is anchored off the mouth 
of the Kadescjuit, and then the stranger in the land 
of the Bessabez is gone. His footprint is that of the 
duck, and his dun sail fades away below the bend of 
the river to become lost in the mazes of wooded cai)es 
that make out into the stream, while the nomad be- 
takes him.self again to his bear-skin and the smokes of 
his lodge of sticks and bark. 

"As in Agrippa's magic glass," 

I see the wilderness aglow with the myriad dyes of 
the first frosts that nip the morning air and lend the 
rose-color of dawn to Champlain's cheeks, and the 
flash of the molten dewdroj) to his eye. 



218 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTJN 



As the barque goes with the stream, 

"I hear the low 
Soft ripple where its waters go; 
The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by, 
And shyly on the river's brink 
The deer is stooping down to drink; " 

and Champlain notes it all and reads it as the adept 
reads the book of Nature. And so he sailed with the 






-"" T" 



■Wmi^%. KUr fsflf "^it.. { ' : 



i 






-f/^. m 










PLATE FOUND AT PENTAGOET 



tide, out the great river and across the bay, leaving 
his memory forever associated with the unravelled 
mystery of Norumbega. After Champlain came the 
years as they had gone before, their tales written by 
the rude hand of Nature, that held alike the gentle 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 219 

heats of summer and the merciless flail of the winter 
winds: from the maples casting their ruddy hoods, to 
when the gray, leafless brush of the woodland crowns 
the hills with the stole of the friar and its tossing 
arms are pinioned by the fingers of the wizard frost. 
The tide ebbs and flows ; the leaves come and go- 
The Tarratine counts the days by sleeps as he does 
his mighty deeds by scalps. 

"As a pale phantom with a lamp 

Ascends some ruin's haunted stair, 
So glides the moon along the damp 
Mysterious chambers of the air, 

"Now hidden in cloud, and now revealed, 
As if this phantom, full of pain. 
Were Ijy the crumbling walls concealed 
And at the windows seen again," 

to mark the calendar of the seasons to the savage, the 
cycle of whose years is never numbered, only rounded 
out as he leaves his wigwam on his lone journey to the 
Happy Hunting-grounds. 

But the savage finds alien footprints along the 
Penobscot sands, and alien smokes choke the virgin 
aisles of his hunting-lands. The shop-keeping .-Viler- 
ton has built his trading-house within the border of 
this land of shadows and of dreams. 

But one cares not for Allerton or the watch-dog 
Willet. There is no romance in their sordid souls — 
in Allerton's not even the romance of honesty; antl 
strange to say, that is something to which some sort 
of romance clings even in these days of contentious 
workers and the absolutism of capital. 



220 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

But make you a magic staff, for which one has to 
" gather on the morrow of All Saints, a strong branch 
of willow, of which you will make a staff, fashioned 
to your liking. Hollow it out, by removing the pith 
from within, after having furnished the lower end 
with an iron ferule. Put into the bottom of the 
staff the two eyes of a young wolf, the tongue and 
heart of a dog, three green lizards, and the hearts of 
three swallows. These must all be dried in the sun, 
between two papers, having been first sprinkled with 
finely pulverized saltpetre. Besides all these, put into 
the staff three leaves of vervain, gathered on the eve 
of St. John the Baptist, with a stone of divers colors, 
which you will find in the nest of the lap-wing, and 
stop the end of your staff with a pomel of box, or any 
other material you please, and be assured that this 
staff will guarantee you from the perils and mishaps 
which too often befal travellers;" and if you use it 
aright it will enable you to see much that will please 
and surprise you, especially of those things which 
have already transpired, once you are in the neigh- 
borhood. 

With your magic staff hie you to Winslow's Cove, 
by the phantom trail that threads the six-mile stretch 
of woods that tower and climb skyward along the 
huge limbless shafts of the golden-hearted pines, 
your feet shod with wings, noiseless as they keep the 
brown woodland floors, following the blaze of the 
axe, for one knows there is an Eden at its end. See! 
there is a brown roof in the edge of the clearing. Its 
low eaves meet the tassels of the corn. It is a drowsy 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



221 



place, for here no rough winds over come, where 
the smoke from the chimney mounts in air like a 
delicately sculptured pilaster of marble, and whose 
goddess is the dainty wife of the adventurous 
D'Aulnay. No tree of forbidden fruits grows in this 
Eden, nor tempter in disguise. Its homely note by 
day is the lowung of the D'Aulnay herd, safely housed 










FORT POINT 



at night. There is only the whine of the fox, the howl 
of the wolf, the far cry of the panther, the Lost Soul 
of the wilderness, and the (juerying alarm of the owl. 
Then come the j)atter of the rain on the roof and the 
crooning of the storm-winds and the crackle of the 
levin — and the orchestra of Nature is at its climax. 
As D'Aulnay hears the thunder rolling through the 
woods, he thinks of the mighty noise Girling made 
one summer afternoon, and he laughs. 



222 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Sunlit pictures lined the vistas of the woods, or the 
gently undulate shores of the river cove, and D'Aul- 
nay was the wizard of all, the curator 

" Of Nature's unhoused lyceum. 
In moons and tides and weather wise, 
He read the clouds as prophecies; 
And, foul or fair, could well divine 
By many an occult hint and sign, 
Holding the cunning-warded keys 
To all the wood-craft mysteries; 
Himself to Nature's heart so near 
That all her voices in his ear " 

were the speech of his familiars. And as for fair Mis- 
tress d'Aulnay, she too had her wildwood acquaint- 
ance. She knew the rune of the wood-fire; 

"The oaken log, green, huge and thick, 
And on its top the stout back-stick; 
The knotty fore-stick laid apart. 
And filled between with curious art 
The ragged brush," 

she interpreted into the songs of the springing saps, 
the garlanded summer, the yellow-laden autumn, and 
the riotous winter, all of which was wrought by the 
crackle of the blazing hearth, the fire-glow of which 
bathed her fair hair in a gleam of ruddy glory, while 

" the rude, old-fashioned room 
Burst, flower-like, into song and bloom." 

Here the Lord of Pentagoet and his spouse drowsed 
or dreamed ; or, waking, mayhap, talked of far-off vine- 
clad France; or, hushing their speech, listened to hear 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 223 

"the violin play, 
Which led the village dance away," 

while from the old chateau steps they watched as in a 
dream the giddy scene. They had abundant time for 
musing, for their days at Pentagoet were not crowded 
with incident ; nor may one call such an existence bar- 
ren of pleasure. There was no game-warden prowling 
about, and their game-preserves began at their thresh- 
old. The woods and streams afforded an abundant 
larder and exciting episode. 

It is by Winslow's Cove one finds the trail of A\an- 
nerton's vicious crew. The ashes of the ancient cabin 
still live in the fertile soil, and with the magic staff 
one builds it at will, to stand athwart its stout thresh- 
old, as one would the doorshek of the Mohammedan; 
or, leaning against its rough-hewn stipe, hears the 
wild laugh of the loon up-river, while the eye devours 
the beauty of its pristine environment. But the pic- 
ture fades with D'Aulnay's unfortunate death. He 
was frozen while out in the bay with his valet, May 24, 
1650. With the passing of D'Aulnay, the romance of 
Pentagoet has flown — for a year later Mistress 
D'Aulnay had left the old places for the new. It hap- 
l)ened after a year of gray, satl days of bereavement, 
and lonely days they were. Then Love shot an ar- 
row, — 

"A softly- feathered shaft that falls 
Within the lonl-deserted walls 
Where brave d'Aulnay's widowed bride 
Awaits above Pentagoet's tide 
The breathing of the wizard spell 
Which lordly La Tour wrought so well," 



224 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



and which made the goddess of Pentagoet over into 
our Lady la Tour of St. John; for the Lord of Esti- 
enne has borne his bride forever from the scenes 
she had learned to love. Woman-like, she yielded to 
her husband's foe, a willing captive, leaving Penta- 
goet without so much as a backward look — with such 
magic was Love's arrow barbed. As La Tour breaks 
the mists of the bay, 

"The forest vanishes in air; 
Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare;" 

the sails of the ships flap in the river breeze, and one 
hears the tread of men, the sounds that make up the 
common things of life. Tradition is forgotten, and 
romance is smothered in the odors of the kitchen, — 

"A phantom, and a dream alone." 



lllpllllWTnmp^ 







RUINS OF FORT GEORGE 



THE PARISH OF SAINTE FAMILLE 



_ _,,..i«3ilTl^rfIln,ii::»», 



* 




"^ic. 






V 



CASTINE FROM ISLESBORO 



THE PARISH OF SAINTE FAMILLE 




HE great Penobscot River is 
the classic stream of Maine. 
The Panawanskek of the abo- 
rigine, the Norumbega of the 
romancer, the Rio Gomez of 
the Sj)anish cosmographers, it 
has been wrought into song 
and story since the days of 
the mendacious Ingram. Is- 
suing out of the Chesuncook 
country, the middle wilderness 
of Maine, it keeps to its march 
to the sea, holding apart its wooded banks with varied 
flow, swiftly impetuous, or threading the Piscataijuis 
valleys, a massive flood, slow, stately, and silent, a 
shred of blue torn from the upper air. From Cau- 
comgemoc Lake comes the central thread, to be aug- 
mented at Chesuncook Lake by its confluence with 
the West Branch, which has its rise on the watershed 
that divides Penobscot Lake from the trilnitaries of 
the Riviere du Loup; while to the eastward, as it 
leaves the lake countrv. the Penobscot East Branch 



228 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

comes down from Chamberlain Lake, taking by Web- 
ster's Brook something of the Allegash waters. Its 
tributaries of brook and pond are legion, and comprise 
the greater fisherman's Paradise of New England. 
There are no mountainous heights reflected in its 
pellucid depths; only the wild shag of the wilderness 
woods, where the lumberman spends his winters, 
drop their dusky shadows off shore. It twists in tu- 
multuous writhings over its worn boulders, leaps in 
wild abandon their shifting barriers, or winds with 
sinuous and graceful bendings among the farming- 
lands nearer the sea. The Penobscot is not much of a 
loiterer by the way, and its walls are hung with a 
picturesque and fascinating scenery. If one begins 
his journey among the islands of the Penobscot Bay 
to go up the river, parting the waters of Heron, Eagle, 
and Churchill Lakes to pass into the Allegash stream, 
and thence down the St. John to the sea, one may 
well doubt if elsewhere can be found so wonderful a 
display of natural beauty as is strung along these 
three streams —all of which are as clear as streaks of 
sunshine, and as sweet and cold as the virgin saps of 
April. 

In the days of the Parish of Sainte Famille it was 
the great aboriginal highway. The dense forests 
crowded its banks with uneven folds of green and 
buff and scarlet, as the season served, and above were 
the flying clouds; but the gray roofs of the villages of 
the present day were not etched into the landscape, 
for, to the English vision, it was a mystery to be un- 
folded only when the savage had been eliminated 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 229 

from the picture and its wildness had been gradually 
tamed. In the time of Castin no white man other 
than himself had caught the echo of its weird silences, 
or inbreathed the savory incense of its huge domi- 
nating pines, or tasted the healing balsams of its 
hooded firs. 

It was terra incognita until the Jesuit Biart found 
his way to the Cannibas. After him came the diplo- 
matic Dreuillettes, who left a trail for the brothers 
Bigot. These were the first three Europeans to pene- 
trate the terrors of the untrodden wildernesses of 
Maine. It was about the ordinary lifetime of a man, 
threescore years and ten, between the first coming of 
Father Biart and the advent of Rale at Nanrant- 
souack on the Kennebec, and the aj)pearance of Baron 
Jean Mneeiit de St. Castin with Madockawando at 
Pentagoet. 

The establishment of the French supremacy at 
Quebec by Champlain opened the eyes of the explorer 
to the condition of the savages, whom he discovered 
to be "living like brute beasts, without law, without 
religion, without God." He invited the Recollects, 
who were of the reformed l)ranch of the Franciscan 
order, to begin a missionary work among the abo- 
rigines. In May of 1G15 four of the Gray Friars were 
at Quebec, and Father John Dolbeau at once insti- 
tuted a mission among the tribe of the Montagnais, 
beginning his work there, spending the winter with 
them, undertaking their nomad life, hunting and fish- 
ing and enduring all the hardshijis common to a win- 
ter in the St. Lawrence Valley, and at the same time 



230 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

acquiring their language, their manners, and modes of 
thought. He became one of them, as it were, sharing 
with them their k^an fare and exposure to the winter 
cold in their frail huts. He won their hearts so that 
they listened to the preaching of the true faith will- 
ingly. Father Joseph le Caron found his way to 
the Wyandots, farther inland and on the borders of 
the great lakes, and in that same year had erected 
an altar in his lodge of bark at Caragouha, a Huron 
town near Thunder Bay, where, like Dolbeau, he be- 
gan the study of the Indian tongue and the manners 
of the rude race among which his lot was thus cast, 
so he might the more readily bring them into the 
Church. 

It was thus that the Recollects had undertaken the 
evangelization of these two powerful savage tribes, 
whose connection with the savage tribes inhabiting 
the country from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and 
from the rivers of the Chesapeake and Ohio to the 
lands beyond the Hudson Bay country, was one of 
kinship and family influence. It was a strange lan- 
guage they had to acc^uire, and it was a life of stern 
and self-denying poverty to which they had commit- 
ted themselves. It was an unfertile ground they had 
undertaken to till, as well, for the Indian idea of a fu- 
ture state was notably obscure. They were controlled 
by their knowledge of natural objects, and whatever 
was to appeal to them was necessarily to be colored 
by that which they could see, and hear, and touch. 
The religion of the Recollects was not rich in natural- 
ness, and the work was at once difficult and arduous. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 231 

if not utterly discouraging;. For all those obstacles, 
the Gray Friars kept to their missions, to their teach- 
ings, and prayers, winning but slowly the savage con- 
vert into their fold. Ten years later there were six 
Franciscans engaged in these intelligent labors, 
and disposed among the five missions of Tadousac, 
Quebec, the Nipissing Mission, that at Three Rivers, 
and another in the country of the Hurons. 

It was not long before the Franciscans were con- 
vinced that the field of New France required workers 
of a different order, an order whose vows bound them 
to a poverty less scrupulous than that of the Recollect 
order, and the Jesuits were invited to come over into 
this new Macedonia and take up the work. It was in 
this y(>ar 1625 that Enemond Masse, Charles Lale- 
mant, and John de Hrebeuf appeared on the scene 
— to which homeless contingent the Franciscans 
opened their convent. The oi)position to the Jesuits 
on the part of the government was renewed ; but the 
Jesuits were a powerful order, and from their friends 
in France received sufficient funds so they were en- 
abled to build cha))els, and through their influence 
considerable augmentations were made to their set- 
tlements. They encouraged the tilling of the ground 
and soon became self-supporting. They wrought side 
by side with the Franciscans in the places where the 
latter had obtained footholds, by whose experience 
they were al)l(' to j)rofit greatly. 

The outside missions suffered alike with that of the 
Quebec colony, which in 1629 had surrendered to the 
English, who at once terminated the lal)ors of the 



232 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Jesuits and Franciscans, and which, after all their 
fourteen years of strenuous church-work, afforded but 
a meagre few of converts. It was a despondent sea- 
son for the priest, and his only resource was to leave 
the pleasant places where he had passed his summers, 
the French settlements, and to plunge deeper into the 
savage wilderness, or leave the St. Lawrence Valley 
wholly. They were in the former case entirely at the 
m^rcy of the savage, which is instanced by the fate 
of Father Nicholas Viel, who had his rude chapel at 
Quieunonascaran, and who had undertaken the work 
begun by Father le Caron. This Quieunonascaran 
was in the Huron country, and here the priest taught 
and cultivated his little patch of ground, upon which 
the eaves of his lodge dripped. In 1625 he undertook 
the journey to Quebec in a canoe with a Huron guide. 
There is a stretch of rapid waters near Montreal 
still called the "SauU au RecoUet," and it was while 
making these rapids that the guide threw the priest 
from the canoe, where the latter was drowned. The 
Iroquois were not less obdurate and brutal in their 
purpose to torture Father Poullain at the stake; but 
he fortunately became the object of an exchange 
by the French, and thus escaped his otherwise certain 
martyrdom. 

But this interregnum or lapse of the Jesuit labors 
was to be of short duration. Three years after the 
surrender of New France to the English, 1632, came 
the Treaty of St. Germain, by which the great terri- 
tories of the Canadas were restored to the French. It 
was from this period that the story of the Jesuit in 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 233 

New France, and liis i)owerful and wide-spreading in- 
fluence, begins; and while it is not within the scope of 
this romance of Sainte Famille to relate with much 
detail the history of the Jesuit, yet it is of interest as 
being the road by which the Baron St. Castin found 
his way to the Penobscot, and by which Father Thury 
likewise happened to establish himself among the 
Tarratines. 

With the Canadian conquest complete and France 
again in control, Richelieu, who was not friendly to 
either Franciscan or Jesuit, offered the Canada mis- 
sions to the Capuchins. It was declined, and it fell 
to the lot of the Jesuit finally to pick up the work 
where it had been laid down at the fall of Quebec. 
The Society of Priests formed at St. Sulpice became 
the clergy of Montreal, but with other than a double- 
tongued Indian Mission, which was located near at 
hand, their work was local. In 1658 Bishop Laval 
came to Canada and founded a school at Quebec 
which was subsidiary to the Seminary of Foreign 
Missions at Paris, which undertook the control of all 
the Indian Missions. Its influence was felt as far as 
the waters of the lower Mississippi, as well as in 
Acadia. Then came the clash between the Church 
and the Governor on account of the sale of liquors to 
the Indians by the latter. As for that, the Jesuits and 
the Government were seldom at peace, by reason of 
the jealousies that seemed ever existent between the 
influence of tlie Church and the tcmjjoral powers. 

The Iroquois were a warlike nation and were con- 
stantly arrayed against the French and the tribes 



234 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

that were at peace with them. The Huron Mission 
was destroyed by the Iroquois in 1650, and the Jesuits 
abandoned the Huron country. The Hurons had been 
swept away by the Iroquois, and the same fate had 
fallen to the Montagnais and the Algonquins on the 
St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. The trading-posts 
of the French at Montreal, Three Rivers, and Quebec 
were practically deserted, and many of the Jesuit 
missionaries returned to France. Not long after, much 
to the surprise of the French in Canada, the Iroquois 
proposed peace. They had made captive a Jesuit, 
Father Poncet, whom they returned in safety to his 
friends at Quebec, and in their peace propositions 
they asked that missionaries be sent them. War 
with these savages had continued almost without in- 
terruption since the settlement of the St. Lawrence 
by Champlain. The tribes of Canada had joined in a 
mutual defense against the bloodthirsty Irociuois, 
and Champlain at the head of his savage allies had 
carried the war into the heart of the Iroquois coun- 
try. It had the disastrous result of exterminating 
their allies and bringing the French to the verge of 
absolute defeat. 

This offer of peace was peculiarly acceptable and 
afforded an opening into the great west. D'Allion 
had in the early mission days crossed the Niagara 
from the westward. The cross had been planted at 
Sault Ste. Marie by Jogues and Raymbault — the 
former of which had attempted to found a mission 
on the Mohawk, but with Goupil and Lalande he had 
died in the wilderness. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 235 

It was Father Simon le Moyne to whom fell the 
mantle and the Indian name of Jogues. He was of 
indomitable spirit, and, acting as the interpreter in 
the negotiations with the Iro(iiiois, had been asked to 
go to the Onondaga and the Mohawk. Onondaga was 
where the great council-fire was to be held by the 
Iroquois League, and Le Moyne left Quebec in early 
July, 1654, reaching Onondaga by the St. Lawrence, 
Lake Ontario, and the Oswego stream. His reception 
was of the most cordial character, and it was sug- 
gested to the French that they build a house on the 
shores of Lake Ontario. This suggestion was invested 
with the most serious formality known to the savage, 
— the presentation of the belt of wampum. The wam- 
pum-belt was the foundation of all credentials and lent 
a j)roper solemnity to the act. Much to Le Moyne's 
pleasure, wherever he went he found converts to the 
Christian faith; and so heartily was he welcomed that 
his heart became buoyed up with a great hope that 
his work might redound greatly to the glory of the 
Church. The following year the Onondagas solicited 
that a mission be established among them, and the 
Jesuits Chaumonot and Dablon were summoned 
hither. On their arrival a notable occasion was made 
with talks and exchanges of wampum-belts, when 
they were shown the site for their chapel and their 
lodge. The Chapel of St. Mary's of Ganentaa was 
soon built, and its site is still pointed out beside 
twin springs of salt and fresh water. 

This promising state of affairs, however, was not for 
long. Rumors of hostile demonstrations on the part 



236 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

of the French came on the wind. Father Dablon re- 
turned to Canada, and the Jesuits Le Mercier and 
Menard set out for Onondaga with a party of French 
under Captain Dupuis, whose intention was to form a 
settlement at Onondaga. They received a cordial 
welcome, and while the Frenchmen began the put- 
ting up of their shelters, the Jesuits had built a sec- 
ond chapel at the Castle of Onondaga, which was not 
far from the Chapel of St. Mary's of Ganentaa. Other 
Jesuits came to this promising field, going among the 
Senacas and the Cayugas, and Father Le Moyne had 
prepared the way for a mission among the Mohawks. 
And so it happened that in 1656 the Jesuits had made 
the acquaintance of the Five Nations, and new mis- 
sions were projected. 

The following year there were indications of an out- 
break of savagery when a party of Hurons were massa- 
cred, which the Iroquois charged to the Jesuits Rague- 
neau and Duperon, but who had in reality endeav- 
ored to save the Hurons from their fate. ^\Tlen Le 
Moyne had reached the Mohawks he found them hos- 
tile, though they allowed him to come among them. 
The Irociuois were about to drop the mask, for they 
followed their attack on the Hurons by a hostile dem- 
onstration upon a party of Ottawas at Montreal, and 
in the melee Father Garreau was killed. It was evi- 
dent that a like disposition awaited the Jesuits at the 
Onondaga Mission; and so open and threatening was 
the hostility of the Five Nations that, by order of 
D'Ailleboust, the Governor of Canada, all the Iro- 
quois in Canada were arrested, to be held as hos- 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 237 

tagcs. Tlie Jesuits at St. Mary's of Ganentaa began 
to formulate plans for an escape, and in March tliey 
took the initiative. They gave a banquet to hide their 
design, and invited the Onondagas. It was a feast at 
which all the food must be eaten in order not to give 
umbrage to the entertainers. The feast was a pro- 
longed one, and the dancing and other amusements 
were kept up until the guests departed, tired and 
gorged with food. In the middle of the noise and 
sport the priests had carried to the edge of the water 
some canoes, which they had j)repared beforehand and 
secreted in their house, and, making their ways safely 
to them, they made all speed with their paddles 
through the night, so the}' were enabled to reach Lake 
Ontario without discovery. It was not until the fol- 
lowing day the Onandagas found that their prey had 
eluded them, and they were nmch mystified by the 
manner in which the Frenchmen had made their es- 
ca|)e. It was an adroit flight and well carried out. 
Le Moyne faretl well, for he had explained the situ- 
ation in a letter which he had succeeded in getting 
into the hands of the Dutch, and the chiefs of the 
Mohawks at once sent him to Montreal. In this month 
of March, 1657, the Jesuits had been able to get away 
from danger, abandoning the scenes of their so prom- 
ising labors. 

It was then that the Iroquois dropped all i)retense 
to the observance of the peace which had i)een only 
too brief, beginning their onslaughts upon the French 
settlements, leaving the ruins of cabins and blood be- 
hind. Three years later, 1660, a Cayuga sachem came 



238 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

to Montreal as a peace envoy. He brought along 
some French people who had been captured in one 
raid after another, who had escaped the stake, and 
demanded that the French authorities send a priest 
to the Onondagas. Father Le Moyne answered the 
demand. On his journey he was waylaid by the 
Oneida savages, but escaped to Oswego. Peace was 
again entered into, and nine prisoners accompanied 
the Iroquois Garakonthie to Montreal; but it was a 
slender compact, to be immediately broken by the 
Mohawks and Onondagas, who came so near Montreal 
that they were able to slay Vignal and Le Maitre, 
two Sulpitian priests whose zeal exceeded their dis- 
cretion. But Le Moyne remained at Onondaga, teach- 
ing among the captive Hurons and the Iroquois, to 
finally return to Montreal the year after, with other 
French captives. 

The Iroquois were treacherous, and while entering 
into negotiations for peace, and making applications 
for Jesuits to be sent them, they were still making war, 
killing and burning at will, without regard to their 
professions of friendliness. The French Government, 
exasperated and sore, determined to carry war into 
the Iroquois country, and a considerable body of reg- 
ular troops was sent over from France, with whom 
came many colonists. Immediate preparations were 
made for a vigorous campaign. Forts were built along 
the Sorel and on the shores of Lake Champlain for the 
reserves and the necessary stores, and the Mohawks 
and Oneidas were to be attacked at once. The Indi- 
ans, with their usual celerity when danger threatened. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 239 

immediately proposed a peace, and the French Gov- 
ernor acceded. But the Indians were restless, and 
the relations between the French and savages again 
became unsettled, so that in 1665 De Courcelles left 
Montreal with a large force on snow-shoes, keeping 
on to the secret recesses of the Mohawk country. The 
Mohawks, warned of De Courcelles' approach, fled 
from their villages, and again a peace was proposed; 
but De Tracy, the Canadian Viceroy, with twelve 
hundred soldiers and one hundred Indians, made his 



way to the Mohawk country and began a work of 
devastation that ended only when all their towns and 
stores of provisions were tlestroyetl. This was fol- 
lowed by a permanent ending of hostilities on the 
part of the Five Nations until after the fall of Eng- 
lish James II., in 16SS. With this peace was termi- 
nated the service of the French soldiery in Canada. 

It is here the story of the Parish of Sainte Famille 
begins; for among those sent over from France to 
assist in the subjugation of the savages of the coun- 
try of the Great Lakes was the Carignan Salieres 
Regiment, of which Baron Castin was the commander. 

Jean Vincent, Baron de St. Castin, was born near 



240 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Oleron, in the District of Beam, Lower Pyrenees. He 
was a young man of lively disposition, fond of ad- 
venture, his youthful mettle tempered by a multi- 
colored experience, his intellect quickened and broad- 
ened by association with matured minds, and pos- 
sessed of a high order of courage and daring. His mil- 
itary training was of the most arduous character, and 
well fitted him for the service in Canada, under De 
Tracy, in his raid upon the Mohawks. After the per- 
manent peace was assured the Regiment Carignan 
Salieres was disbanded. The officers were granted 
considerable areas of the new country up and down 
the St. Lawrence, which were known as seignories, 
and upon which they disposed themselves, building 
such shelters as suited their fancies, and gathering 
about them their soldiers, who served them as vassals. 
The settlement on the St. Lawrence at the coming of 
Castin and his regiment was weak, possessing but a 
slender population, and being confined to its peltry 
trade for its resources. It was undeveloped country, 
and to men inclined to a military career it offered 
ampler opportunity for idleness and indulgence in the 
sports of the chase, or of the hunt, than inducement to 
more serious employment. St. Castings example w^as 
doubtless willingly followed by his brother officers, 
who, like himself, were not particularly pleased with 
their abrupt dismissal from the service. The French 
were always adepts at love-making, and the Indian 
maidens of the Montagnais, like the petalled flowers 
of the woodland, lent the sweet fragrance of their 
companionship to the pleasure of these titled adven- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 241 

turers, apparently without reserve, and their half- 
breed offspring eanie up like their sires, in idleness 
and license. Romantic days were those beside the 
rushing waters of the St. Lawrence, but of which 
St. Castin soon tired. The life was too tame among 
these isolate seignories; and it was about this time, 
when he was casting his lines for gamier fish, that he 
met Madockawando, the great sagamore of the Tar- 
ratines, who had come to Montreal to dispose of his 
peltries. It was the task of the Tarratine chief to 
weave the romance of the Penobscot woods of such 
fascinating pattern that St. Castin should be induced 
to return with him to his tribe, where, beside 

" the lovely bay, 
Penobscot's clustered wigwams lay; " 

and where, not far out to seaward, 

"A thousand wooded islands," 

slumbering to the sounds of many waters, merged and 
mingled their sagging horizon-lines with the soft va- 
pors of the sea, lending and blending their emerald 
hues to the deeper vert of the titles that lapped the 
yellow fringe of their receding shores. He painted the 
immensity of that wilderness whence 

"The broad Penobscot comes to meet 
And mingle " 

with these self-same waters; 

"Slow sweep his dark and gathering floods, 
Arched over by the ancient woods," 

even from the shadows of vast Katahdin, where were 
wrought the first slender threads of sih-er whose mol- 



242 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

ten argent at Pentagoet ebbed and flowed with the 
rippling pulse of the sea. 

Mayha]) the wily sagamore whispered in his ear the 
wanton tale of the dusky beauties who flitted in and 
out the Penobscot shadows, and who grew like the 
wild-flowers of the woods — sweet, lithe, and willowy 
of figure ; whose moods were as various as the winds 
that kissed the Penobscot waters ; whose eyes were the 
color of the leaves of the ash as the autumn days went; 
whose voices were as softly and wondrously musical 
as the twilight song of the thrush, and as seductive 
as the Serpent of Eden. What more was needed to 
woo the adventurous Castin? 

St. Castin listened to Madockawando, and as he 
looked forward into the possibilities of the future, 
struggling with unavailing fingers at the strings that 
held the scroll of its mysteries intact and unrevealed, 
so he looked backward over the way he had come 
from the old chateau at Oleron. He recalled his fam- 
ily, which was of noble rank, but of which no tradition 
exists — possibly being extinguished or overwhelmed 
in the tide of the French Revolution, which swept 
away so many of the French nobility in its wild course. 
Only the story of the son remains, who left his home, 
a raw youth of some fifteen years, whose heart beat 
high, and whose mind over-brimmed with visions of 
great achievement in the armies of his country. In 
those days it was the customary thing in France for 
young men to seek the army, or the Church for pre- 
ferment; but St. Castin was not cut out for a monk, 
so he went to the wars. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 243 

The Carignan Salieres was a part of the like famous 
P'rench Corps contributed by Louis XIY. to the Ger- 
man Leopold's aid in his desperate fight with the 
Turks. Mazarin was dead. Colbert was at the head of 
the French finances, and he had advised Louis to send 
the Emperor this famous contingent of six thousand 
of the flower of the French army. It was needed; for 
the Turks had burst the barrier of Transylvania, and 
already menaced the German capital with its pagan 
horde. Leopold was at St. Gothard, and his armies 
were massed under the command of the Italian Monte- 
cuculi. The Turks were rai)ping at the boundary- 
gates and pounding them loudly with the hilts of their 
scimetars, 

August 1, 1664, they were on the hither side of the 
Raab and had thrown themselves against the troops 
of the Empire. The Carignans were among the re- 
serves, under the direct command of Count de Coligne 
Soligne, and a contemporary account of the fight is 
not uninteresting. Martin says: "The janizaries and 
spahis crossed the river and overthrew the troops of 
the diet and a part of the Imperial regiments; the 
Germans rallied, but the Turks were continually re- 
enforced, and the whole Mussulman army was soon 
found united on the other side of the Raab. The battle 
seemed lost, when the French moved. It is said that 
Achmet Kiouprougli (the Turkish Grand \'izier), on 
seeing the young noblemen pour forth with their uni- 
forms decked with ribbons and their blond jx'rukes, 
asked, ' Who are those maitlens?" 

"The maidens broke the terrible janizaries at the 



244 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

first shock ; the mass of the Turkish army paused and 
recoiled on itself; the Confederate (Leopold's) army, 
reanimated by the example of the French, rushed for- 
ward and charged on the whole line; the Turks fell 
back, at first slowly, their faces toward the enemy, 
then lost footing and fled precipitately to the river to 
recross it under the fire of the Christians; they filled 
it with their corpses." It was a famous fight and ter- 
minated the war, the Turks retiring to their own do- 
minions, never to forget the vicious onslaught of the 
Carignans that turned the day against them. 

It was the following year that this regiment was 
sent to the Canadas, where, as has been observed, 
their service was short. It is not to be supposed that 
these young officers, gentiUwmmes they were, were 
other than soldiers of fortune, with only their swords 
for capital, supported by their stern sense of honor, 
and in no wise fitted for the improvement of the 
leagues of land donated them by the Governor, 
and whose accomplishments were those of a notable 
gallantry polished by the manners of the Court, and 
tinctured with a deal of vanity. They were not of the 
laboring class — to them labor was demeaning and 
a lowering of caste. Undoubtedly they were poor, 
but to those who accepted their seignories a small 
sum of money was given, as was a smaller sum to 
their vassals. It was a virgin country for hunting and 
fishing, and if they in any way engaged in business, 
it was in the accumulation of furs and the selling of 
them to the traders, after a vagabondish fashion. 
Champigny, the French Intendant, says of the chil- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 245 

(Iron of these soldiers: "It is pitiful to see their chil- 
dren, of which they have great numbers, passing all 
summer with nothing on but a shirt, and their wives 
and daughters working in the fields." Perhaps no 
more demoralizing or unfortunate state of affairs 
could be described, and it is not singular that the 
French were so slow in their march toward a forceful, 
self-sustaining civilization. It could be but a rotten 
fabric based upon so disintegrate a foundation. 

St. Castin was of these gentilhommes, and it is to be 
doubted if he accepted one of these seignories, for it 
was not long after peace was entered into with the 
Lake tribes that he met Madockawando; and it is 
supposed that, charmed with the opportunity offered 
of having the field to himself, which he finally ac- 
quired under a grant from the Frencii Crown, he re- 
turned with the savage sagamore to his like savage 
home by the Penobscot. Once here, he built for him- 
self an ample and commodious residence, which was 
probably situated near the site of D'Aulnay's fort. It 
has been described as a long, somewhat extended, and 
irregularly con.structed building, the materials of 
which were partly of wood and partly of rock, and of 
somewhat grotesque architecture. It was situated at 
the confluence of the Penobscot and ]^iguyduce riv- 
ers — a beautiful spot with a like charming outlook, 
and a most fortunate selection for a trading-post and 
center of operations, which it not long after became;, 
for it was from St. Castin's brain that emanated the 
plans of offense anti tlefense against the English after 
the plundering raid of Andros on the Penobscot. 

The character of the man is interesting, as St. 



246 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Castin seems to be, of all the French officers at Penta- 
goet, that one to whom the romance of its wildness 
has attached itself with perennial freshness. His abil- 
ities were undoubtedly most excellent, forceful, and 
productive of results. He was possessed of great 
daring, which was equalled by his enterprise. His 
manners and address were gentle, and as well fascina- 
ting; while his education, for the times, may be re- 
garded as amply competent for all his needs, either as 
a leader of his people or as a diplomat. A devout 
Catholic, he was generous, forbearing, and kindly 
solicitous for others. In other words, St. Castin was a 
gentleman by birth and culture. He was held in great 
esteem by his own people, possessed credit at the 
French Court, and was respected by those who re- 
sented his and the French occupancy of the Penob- 
scot country. And this, in the face of some charges of 
undue freedom with the Tarratine belles, and his de- 
tention by M. Perrot for the space of seventy days 
upon charges " of a weakness he had for some fe- 
males," stood him in good stead — as those who knew 
him best were inclined to wink at his follies among 
the softer sex. The savages held him in great venera- 
tion. He had absolute control over them, and he was 
their tutelar divinity. Later, he was feared and hated 
by the English, alike, for whom he had little consid- 
eration. He classed them all with Andros, and he had 
for them all what he would have rendered to Andros 
could he have reached him. 

We are not sure of the time of St. Castin's coming 
to Maine, but it may be asserted to have been about 



THE LAXD OF .ST. CA6TIX 



247 



1666-67, whore, after a little, he had made himself 
a little state, his government " surrounded by Indian 
retainers, a menace and a terror to the neighboring 
English colonist." He was a man of different fettle 
from either D'Aulnay or Chamblay, whom he found 
here in command. He was not one to run in grooves, 







/ ^ ^ 



*^te. 



mJ'; ?P''-> 






and this opening for a free and adventurous career 
was exceedingly attractive. He entered into it with 
all the zest in his many-sided make-up. and to some 
historical writei-s the coming of this man hither was 
by reason of some secret spring or motive. That docs 
not seem apparent. His regiment disbanded, dis- 
missed from the service he so much liked, he was 



248 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

simply stranded on the shores of the St. Lawrence, 
which offered him nothing more than that which might 
come to an ordinary mortal. The outlook for his 
fortunes in France was no better. He was a free lance, 
and he followed Madockawando down the headwaters 
of the St. John's to the Allegash, thence up and across 
the triple lakes, and down the great Penobscot to the 
fair peninsula where was later the Parish of Sainte 
Famille, then only an Indian village, a cluster of 
brown-walled wigwams whose smokes, mirrored in the 
stream, subtly 

" Etched with the shadows of its sombre margent 
And soft reflected clouds of gold and argent," 

were not wilder or less unrestrained than the slender 
hands that fed them. 

St. Castin may have seen Madockawando more 
than once at Montreal as he came with his peltries; 
and, at last, fired with the tales of the chief, of the 
stores of beaver, otter, and sable to be had for the 
trapping, and the chances for immediate and consid- 
erable wealth, he had shouldered his kit into the 
canoe of the savage and crossed the Rubicon. The 
rest was easy. The life before him had no terrors; for 
five years of life beside a camp-fire with a soldier's 
fare had weeded out those finer sensibilities which 
afford only seed-ground for antipathies that are for- 
gotten once one is within the portals of the woods, 
where Nature's f easting-board is the common ground 
whereon one walks. He had no cjualms, moral or 
otherwise, in his intimacy with the savages. He ate, 



THE LAXD OF ST. CA:STL\ 249 

slept, and fai'cd with them as to the savage born. He 
Imnted with them; he learned at their school what 
they had to teach ; and he taught them as well what 
he knew, and his amiable way made swift inroad into 
the hearts of the jjroud Tarratines, of whom one finds 
a quaint description in Wood's ''New England Pros- 
pect." He says: 

"Take these Indians in their own trimme and nat- 
ural) disposition, and they be reported to be wise, 
lofty-spirited, constant in friendship to one another; 
true in their promises, and more industrious than 
many others, . . . when some of our English, who 
to uncloathe them of their beaver coates clad them 
with the infection of swearing and drinking which was 
never the fashion with them })efore, it being contrary 
to their nature to guzzell downe stronge drinke, until 
our bestial example and dishonest incitation hath 
brought them to it; . . . and from overflowing cups 
there hath been a proceeding to revenge, murther, 
and overflowing of blood."' 

Wood is as truthful as he is candid. It is, how- 
ever, not probable that the habits of drinking among 
the Tarratines were of the confirmed character that 
prevailed about and to the westward of the Kennebec, 
for the complaint against the French is lacking that 
was made against the English,— that the traders first 
made the savages drunk and then rol)bed them. That 
was their apology when the first raid was made on 
Purchase's cabin at New Meadows River by the sav- 
ages, — that they were simply taking to themselves 
their own. 



250 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

Madockawando is credited as being a savage of 
great ability, corresponding courage, and much hu- 
manity. He had a kindly feeling for the Jesuit, as was 
traditional with his race on the Penobscot from the 
time of Biart. He was grave and serious of speech, 
and on his visits to Montreal seldom omitted to visit 
the priests of the only church he knew. Hubbard 
ascribes to him a " show of a kind of religion," and he 
adopted St. Castin at once into his family. 

Here was the beginning of St. Castin's romance as 
he sat by the fires 

"Of nights in the tents of the Tarratines; 
Of Madocawando, the Indian chief, 
And his daughters, glorious as queens. 

And beautiful beyond belief; 
And so soft the tones of the native tongue. 
The words are not spoken, they are sung;" 

and mingled the whiffs from his stone pipe with the 
smokes that wandered within the narrowing walls, 
and dreamed of the day when he 

" sailed across the western seas. 
When he went away from his fair demesne 
The birds were building, the woods were green;" 

and he conjures up the old chateau under the pallid 
peaks of the Pyrenees. He hears the winds howling 
around the massive stone turrets as when he was a 
boy, or shouting down the wide chimney into the ga- 
ping fireplace, where 

"His father, lonely, old, and gray. 
Sits by the firesitle daj^ by day. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 251 

Thinking ever one thought of care; 

Through the southern windows, narrow and tall, 

The sun shines into the ancient hall. 

And makes a glory round his hair." 

It is the same hall where his boyish feet made noisy 
clatter in the not far-off days, for he cannot count so 
many years on his head after all. But it is all so differ- 
ent now wliere his father keeps to the round of his 
customed living over of the old days, dozing over his 
cake and wine, or dreaming of his younger self, to 
whose belt he mayhap girded his own sword, while 

■'The house-dog, stretcheil beneath his chair, 
Groans in his sleep as if in pain, 
Then wakes, and yawns, and sleeps again. 
So silent is it everywhere, — 
So silent you can hear the mouse 
Run and rununage along the beams 
Behind the wainscot of the wall; 
And the old man rouses from his dreams, 
And wanders restless through the house. 
As if he heard strange voices call." 

But St. Castin's voice falls upon other ears, to be an- 
swered 

"By a laugh in which the woodland rang 
Bemocking .\prirs gladdest bird, — 
A light and graceful form which sj^rang 
To meet him when his step was heard," 

and his dream of the old chateau is banished, and a 
new picture is wrought in the softly translucent 

"Eyes by his lodge-fire flashing dark. 
Small fingers stringing bead and shell, 
Or weaving mats of bright-hued bark," 



252 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

while he woos with gentle speech the sweetest flower 
of Madockawando's household, — the lissome Mathilde. 
And what an entrancing creature this forest child, 
wild blossom of the Pentagoet woods, as 

" Slight robed, with loosely-flowing hair, 
She swam the stream or climbed the tree, 

Or struck the flying bird in air. 
O'er the heaped drifts of winter's moon 

Her snow-shoes tracked the hunter's way; 
And dazzhng in the summer noon, 

The blade of her light oar threw otT its shower of spray. 

"Unknown to her the rigid rule, 

The dull restraint, the chiding frown, 
The weary torture of the school, 

The taming of wild nature down. 
Her only lore the legends told 

Around the hunter's fire at night ; 
Stars rose and set, and seasons rolled, 

Flowers bloomed and snow-flakes fell, unquestioned 
in her sight." 

And yet his memory of the chateau at Oleron 
blooms again, and a gentle voice ])ids him " Good- 
night!" and he goes up the winding stairs of stone to 
look out the slit in the turret wall at the moon that 
shows through the brush of the trees that crowd the 
wide park, and the near peaks of the mountains flash 
back their silvery whiteness; but their splendors do 
not drown the kindly light of the father's fond smile 
that still lingers in his boyish eyes, and which has kept 
him company all these years; for St.Castin is loyal to 
his family traditions, as is the way with his race. The 
fire smoulders at his feet, and the dainty Mathilde has 
left him to his reverie like a wise woman. The coal in 



THE LAXD OF ST. CAST IX 253 

his pipe is dead, but what matters it, as he dreams of 
France, twisting the strands of romance into the sin- 
gle thread of Fate — and how many there are of 
them, and how they tug at his heart-strings! He has 
mounted the stairs, — and to his boyish feet there 
seemed to be many of them, — and he is over the 
threshold of the room where a fair-haired woman 
every night lulled him to sleep with a motherly kiss, 
and every morning awoke him with a tender caress; 
and his head droops as if her wonted touch were 
there, and a spirit whispers, '' Benedicite " in his ear. 
The fire has smouldered to a single brand, and it 
gleams from its bed of gray ashes like the star that 
to his childish eyes seemed ever to burn abo\'e the 
cypress hedge of the ancient graveyard of Oleron, or 
to shine through the arches of the old stone church- 
tower like a light hung amid its bells, that were strik- 
ing the hours at all times of the night. 

His Indian mat is a magic carpet, and it has carried 
him across the seas, and he looked from 

" the bed on which he lay, — 
There are the pictures bright and gay, 
Horses and hounds and sun-lit seas; 
There are his powder-flask and gun, 
And his hunting-knives in the shape of a fan; 
His chair by the window where he sat, 
With the cloudetl tiger-skin for a mat, 
Looking out on the Pyrenees, 
Looking out on Mount Marbord 
And the Seven Valleys of Lavedan," 

as in the days of youth; but it is only a memory, this 
lingering of a vision so fresh in mind that it seems to 



254 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

him like the soft odor of a presence that has passed. 
The gray ashes have burst into a flame, and the fire, 
replenished by the beautiful Mathilde, sings the song 
of Nature, and St. Castin translates it so that it is 
balm to his soul, to speed the wooing of the sagamore's 
daughter, — 

" The garden rose may richly bloom 

In cultured soil and genial air, 
To cloud the light of Fashion's room, 

Or droop in Beauty's midnight hair. 
In lonelier grace, to sun and dew 

The sweet-briar on the hillside shows 
Its single leaf and fainter hue, 

Untrained and wildly free, yet still a sister rose;" 

for, to St. Castin, the dusky maid was the wild rose of 
Pentagoet. And what wooings those old woods saw, 
with the fire of France to set them aglow; and with 
what smoothness sped Love's course, straight as an 
arrow to its mark; and the consummation — for there 
was no fashion in those days to make the bride de- 
pendent upon the Paris dressmaker for stunning 
effects in draperies. It was a simple affair, — St. Castin 
had given to Madockawando a knife and a gun, and 
to the wedding-feast, proffered by the proud sagamore, 

" With pipes of peace and bows unstrung, 
Glowing with paint, came old and young, 
In wampum and furs and feathers arrayed." 

It was a notable occasion, where 

" Bird of the air and beast of the field, 
All which the woods and waters yield. 
On dishes of birch and hemlock piled. 
Garnished and graced that banquet wild ; " 



THE LASD OF ST. CASTIX 



ZDiD 



bear from Katahdin, salmon from the pool above the 
mouth of the Kadcsciuit, nuts from Mont Desert, and 
grapes from the Magpie Islands, 

" Wine from the depths of the woodhind spring, 
Bottled afresh in the deer's white skin, 
And drunk from cups of the virgin birch. 
Daintily wrought, without and within," 

was servetl by the dusky Hebes. 

"And merrily when the feast was done 
On the fire-lit green the dance begun, 
With squaws' shrill stave, and deeper hum 
Of old men beating the Indian drum. 

"Painted and plumed, with scalp-locks flowing 
And red arms tossing and black eyes glowing. 
Now in light, and now in shade. 
Around the fire the dancers played. 

"The step was quicker, the song more shrill. 
And the beat of the small drums louder still, 
Whenever within the circle drew" 

St. Castin and his bride. Ikit the ccrcnKJiiy was over. 
The dance was done, and the great fires had smoul- 
dered into heai)s of smoking brands. St. Castin had 
led his liridc to his new house, escorted by the maid- 
ens of the tribe, mid then the Tarratine village had 
lapsed into its accustomed (juiet. 

According to Shea, St. Castin's official i)osition in 
the regiment Carignan Salieres was a subordinate 
one, being that of an ensign in Chanibly's company; 
but other writers credit him with the command of 
that regiment. (Irandfontainc was in connnand at 
Pentagoet after the Treaty of Breda, 1667, and was 



256 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



succeeded by Chambly, and it was Chambly who was 
attacked by the Dutch, and wounded and carried 
away for a ransom in 1674. 

Abbe Raynal speaks of St. Castin as a captain who 
settled among the Abenake, "married one of their 
women, and conformed in every respect to their mode 




GOOSE CREEK 



of life." Mr. Godfrey, in his brochure on St. Castin, 
uses the above language and refers to Poutrincourt's 
son, Biencourt, with whom came the first Jesuits, also 
Charles la Tour, and Ashley, the co-agent at Penta- 
goet who was so successfully dogged by Willet, as 
men who had adopted the habits and customs of the 
savages. It was an attractive life to a man whose ties 
to civilization were somewhat loosely twisted, or per- 
haps bent by policy. If St. Castin were ambitious of 
influence, he took the way to gain it ; for by his alli- 
ance with the family of Madockawando he rapidly 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 257 

ac(iuiiv(l their friendship, and hitterly their unlim- 
ited contitlence. 

WTien St. Castin came among the savages of the 
Penobscot the river was called, and probably the re- 
gion adjacent to it, Panawanske; and if one went by 
Baron Hontan he would have been here in 1663; 
but the assault on the Turks at Raab had not then 
taken place. Hontan says: "The Baron St. Castin, 
a gentleman of Uleron, in Bearne, having lived among 
the Abenacjuis after the savage way for above twenty 
years, is so much resjiected by the savages that they 
look upon him as their tutelar god.'' 

St. Castin was here when the Dutch made their 
raid on Chambly, in 1674, but it does not appear that 
he took any active part in the affair, leaving Chambly 
to his own conceits. It was at this time, the Dutch 
having sailed away witii their ])lunder, that St. Cas- 
tin assumed jwssession of the fort. According to a 
French annalist, *' He recaptured it as lieutenant of 
Sieur de Grandfontaine, governor of said fort." He 
began to trade after the pattern set by Allerton, and 
was very successful. 

After St. Castings assumption of the command of 
Fort Pentagoet he was not infrecjuently annoyed, 
and he suffered more or less interru))tion from the 
English, who envietl him his opportunity for lucrative 
trade by reason of his being in the heart of the trading 
country, which, by the influx of the English eastward 
of the Piscata(iua. had become somewhat nan-owed 
west of Pemacjuid. The mine had been worked out; 
but St. Castin was somewhat bothered bv his com- 



258 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

patriots in Acadia, who were incliiietl to l)ecome jeal- 
ous of his iricreasiiig wealth and influence. There had 
been a strife for years between the English and the 
French for the rich lands between the Kennebec and 
the St. Croix. It was coveted territory, and there is 
no reason to doubt but the French, l)y right of discov- 
ery and occupation, were rightfully in possession. 

As has been before noted, the French were credited 
with having a small trading-post here in 1556, but it 
was not initil 1613 that they made an attempt to for- 
tify the peninsula of Pentagoet. De Monts and Cham- 
plain were the first explorers of the river, and they 
were the first to exploit its resources. It was a rich 
country. The river teemed with salmon, haddock, 
cod, and other profitable commodity to l)c secured 
with hook and line by those who followed the indus- 
try of fishing, while its upper waters were thronged 
with the habitations of the beaver, and afforded 
countless haunts for the otter. Its woods were abun- 
dant in sable and other fur-bearing animals, which 
were easily captured by the Indians even with their 
rude weapons and traps. It was an immense hunting- 
ground, and approached by a most incomparable and 
magnificent highway. Here at Pentagoet was an 
important colonial foothold, of which the Tarra- 
tines were the original proprietors, and which after 
the coming of St. Castin was zealously guarded. 

Between the aborigine and the French, as to the 
latter's occupancy of Pentagoet, there was no ques- 
tioning. In their intercourse with the savages the 
French were unlike the English. The former were 



77//: LAX J) OF sr. CASTIN 259 

plastic in tcmix'raincnt, generous and considerate, 
not averse to eating from the same dish, accommoda- 
ting themselves always and naturally to the savage 
mood with an approving rather than a chicUng dispo- 
sition; diplomatic; while the latter were openly pred- 
atory, driving a snug bargain like the shopkeepers 
they were, and not averse to getting what they tie- 
sired, willy-nilly. Tntrained in commerce, the sav- 
age was not long in discovering where the long end of 
the bargain was going under the influence of the 
Englishman's insidious strong waters, and that their 
acquaintance with the thrifty settler from Pcmariuid 
to the westward was subjecting them to constantly 
aggregating abuses. The English were sowing this- 
tles, while the savage bided the harvest patiently. 

From the days of the Acadian governorship of 
Razillai, the Penobscot had been raided with indift'er- 
ent success. The " I'ndertakers " had reaped a boun- 
tiful return from their investment when Rnsillon 
Nwoojied down u))()ii their trading-house in l()o2. 
Then came DWulnay, and the French flag floated 
over Fort Fentagoet; but D'Aulnay was not to And 
his pathway strewn with roses. With the death of 
Razillai, the Protestant La Tour began his hornet-like 
buzzings al)out the eai"s of the papist D'Aulnay, 
and a bitter rivalry began its stalking from St. John 
toward Pentagoet. La Tour, ambitious for jjower 
and jealous of D'Aulnay, encouraged by the med- 
dlers of Massachusetts Hay, who still felt a lively 
resentment at being deprived of the trade on the 
Penobscot, began a series of reprisals by plundering 



260 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



and burning D'Aulnay's property at Pentagoet, while 
the latter, peaceably enough inclined, when he heard 
the storm coming, sought the shadows of the woods, 
to begin the rehabilitation of his shattered premises 
when the sails of the raitlers had disappeared down the 
river. La Tour was finally ordered Imck to France, 
but owing to changes in the home administration the 



<^> 




FISH-HOUSES, OLD CASTINE 



Ijrosecution against him fell inert, and D'Aulnay kept 
his fort until he was drowned, in 1650-51, With La 
Tour's marriage to the widow of D'Aulnaj' the strife 
for this part of Acadia ceased. In 1654 Pentagoet was 
again under the English supremacy, to be afterwards, 
in 1667, by the Treaty of Breda, restored to the 
French, under the governorship of Chevalier Grand- 
fontaine, to whom Colbert, Minister of Finance, gave 
instructions to hold the place. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 261 

The exact time of the coming of St. Castin is in- 
definite, but it may be assumed to have been upon 
the occupation by Grandfontaine. M. de Chambly was 
the officer in charge until the coming of the Flemish 
freebooters in 1G74, who pillaged and dismantled 
the fort, to at once sail down stream with their booty. 
Two years later, one spring day, a Dutch man-of-war 
made its way up the river, and the echoes of the heavy 
guns were soon flying through its wilderness of woods. 
The fort at once took up the challenge, and the river 
was choked with the smokes of the battle, under 
cover of which the French retired to the woods. The 
Dutch landed a detachment and at once possessed 
themselves of the fortification, over which they raised 
their flag, with the intention of holding the place per- 
manently. Undoubtedly St. Castin watched the con- 
flict from some safe vantage-point and began at once 
to lay his plans for its recapture. Shortly after, a small 
fleet of English vessels, hailing from l^oston, came up 
the river and the Dutch vessel slipped her cable and 
went out to sea, whereupon St. Castin made a sortie 
upon Pentagoet and recaptured it, from which time 
on he was its commanding officer, making the barter- 
ing for furs his chief occupation. St. Castin was a man 
of peaceable inclinations, whose position as sachem 
of the Tarratines gave him the paramount influence. 
His efforts were always for peace among his people, 
and until the unfortunate advent of Andros the Eng- 
lish were much indebted to him for the non-interfer- 
ence of the savages on the Penobscot in the disturb- 
ances that followed the outbreak of 1676. His object 



262 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

was trade and the making of money. He carried on 
a contraband trade with the EngHsh, which was mu- 
tually profitable, and the latter well appreciated his 
influence with the Indians of the Penobscot, and 
courted his favor with much assiduity. St. Castin 
also had a trading-jjost at Port Royal. M. Perrot was 
Governor of Acadia at that time, and had become St. 
Castin's debtor as a borrower of money, which brought 
him nothing but perplexity. The Governor was in- 
clined to go into the fishery industry, and bought 
some vessels for that purpose; but being unable to 
obtain further influence from St. Castin, and being 
unable also to secure the assistance of the French 
fishermen, he was compelled to man his fishing-ves- 
sels with English, who robbed him so unmercifully — 
stealing his fish and sending them to Boston for sale — 
that he was })erforce com])elled to return the vessels 
to those of whom he had |)urchased them, being un- 
able to pay for them. Whether he repaid the deljt to 
St. Castin is uncertain, but it was apparent that the 
latter was indifferent to the Governor's success, who 
ungraciously rewarded St. Castin with a series of petty 
annoyances, charging him with licentiousness among 
the filles of Port Royal, and making that an excuse 
for holding the commandant of Pentagoet a prisoner 
for a six weeks' space, which certainly did not mend 
matters. 

If St. Castin felt any resentment to Perrot he did 
not show it, but kept the even tenor of his way, main- 
taining an admirably pleasant exterior, always capa- 
ble and ingenious in devices, a diplomat and ex- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 263 

pert in expediencies. St. Castin was in his prime, 
neither old nor was his face marked with hnes of 
dissipation. He was in the heyday of life and was 
no doubt greatly in love with his fair wife, the youth- 
ful Maria Pidiaskie, whose was 

"A fonn of beauty uiulefinetl, 
A loveliness without a name, 
Not of degree but more of kind; 
Nor bokl nor shy, nor short nor tall, 
But a new niingling of them all. 
Yes, beautiful beyond belief;" 

nor does one doubt that when he looks ui)on her he 
thinks of the far home at the foot of the Pyrenees. 
St. Castin was a man of sentiment, else he would not 
have been swayed by the charms of the chisky Tar- 
ratine beauties or the fa.scinations of the belles of 
Port Royal: and he must have Ix'cn a man of mo.st 
excellent parts to have been .so .seductive with the 
softer sex. But your man of sentiment is ever a 
dreamer, and St. Castin had time for dreaming, as 
busy as Perrot kept him with his wasp-like attentions. 
Thoughts of home mu.st have crowded in upon his 
mind, and esj^ecially that he had inherited an inmien.se 
property for those days, of which he received due no- 
tice, but which he ignored with a strange perversity 
of nature, apparently satisfied with what he had, 
and with the possibilities of the future, which was 
filled with promise. He was a man who was openly 
averse to social trammels, yet a man of honor, setting 
an example to his savage attendants of marital loy- 
alty to one wife. He enjoyed the freedom of the woods 



264 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

and the life that belonged to it, yet one is sure that 
this life, 

'■ Full of adventures and wonderful scenes 
Of hunting the deer through forests vast 
In the royal grant of Pierre du Gast," 

had not crowded out the color of the landscape of an- 
cient Oleron, and he writes a letter to his father that 

" wings its way 
Across the sea, like a bird of prey, 
And strikes and tears the old man's heart." 

Then St. Castin forgets the ivied walls of the old 
chateau, the great park, and the rooks that go troop- 
ing over it from dawn to sunset, for Colonel Thomas 
Dongan, Governor of New York, had written " Sieur 
de St. Castin, commandant of Fort Pentagoet," that 
the English claimed the country from the Kennebec 
to the St. Croix, ordering him and his French people 
who were occupants of that part " embracing between 
those two rivers forty or fifty leagues on the finest 
country in all Acadia" to leave it immediately, or 
take the oath of allegiance to the English Crown, 
The letter was not altogether so rough, as Dongan, 
realizing St. Castin's power among the savages, and 
his ability as an officer, held out to him advantageous 
inducements if he would come under the English sway 
and turn over to the English authorities his trading- 
post, which he would still be allowed to control. 

But St. Castin was loyal. Dongan's threats and 
persuasions flew past their mark, although M. de 
Callieres was somewhat disturbed over the brilliant 



THE LAM) OF ST. CASTIX 265 

offers of Dongan to his countryman. M. Porrot gave 
liini more troul)le than Dongan. Perrot was a med- 
dler, a "person of grasping and (inarrclsome (Usj)()si- 
tion." He had qiiarreUed with Front enae; engaged in 
personal wrangles and canings, such was his irascibil- 
ity; maintained a contraband trafhc with the Indians, 
selling them brandy by the half-i)int, j)ersonally, 
when Governor; fought a duel in which, jierhaps, un- 
fortunately for St. Castin and others, he was only 
wounded: s(|uabbh'd with the clergy of Quebec, ma- 
king himself so utterly abominated that he was 
driven over to Acadia, over which beautiful coun- 
tr}- his friends at court had procured him a com- 
mission as Governor. 

His accumulations were even then reputed to have 
been large; and casting his greedy eyes over the pos- 
sibilities of his new demesne, they settled longingly 
upon Pentagoet. Here he found St. Castin to be a 
formidable rival, and he began his scheming for the 
latter's downfall. St. Castin retired from Port Royal, 
where Perrot had taken up his residence, but the lat- 
ter was not satisfied with having the immediate ter- 
ritory to himself, and persisted in his persecutions. 

But St. Castings attentions to Perrot were suddenly 
diverted l)v the ojx'rations of the tools of Andros at 
Pemaquid. In 1686 the Governor of Sagadahock 
appointetl the pliant yet rapacious commissioners. 
Palmer and West, to the management of the country 
east of the Kennebec. The old claim of James II. to the 
lands as far east as the St. Croix Kiver was renewed, 
and it so haj)pcned that St. Castin had ordiM-cd from 



266 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

Nelson, Watkins & Company, Boston merchants, a 
cargo of wine and fruit. The bill of lading called for 
seventy pipes of Malaga wine, one of brandy, two of 
oil, and sixteen barrels of fruit. The cargo was shipped, 
and was to be landed at a point down-stream. The 
skipper, hailing from Piscataqua, landed his wines 
at the place previously determined upon, and before 
St. Castin could come at them they had been at- 
tached by one Thomas Sharpe because the duties had 
not been paid at Pemaciuid; but the English court 
ordered the wines restored, after which their owner 
had some time on his hands which he might devote to 
M. Perrot. 

St. Castin was not a man to sit down quietly under 
the abusive and insolent attitude assumed by Perrot, 
so he resolved to carry the war into the camp of his 
persecutor. But his troubles with the Government of 
New England were not wholly over, for in 1687 St. 
Castin was asked to surrender the fort at Pentagoet. 
He ignored the demand, being engaged at Port Royal 
in the erection of a mill, other than to ask of the Gov- 
ernor of Canada for a force of thirty soldiers, offering, 
if they were promptly sent him, to sustain the fort at 
Pentagoet, and to collect a settlement of four hun- 
dred Indians. He found time in this note to write the 
Governor-General concerning M. Perrot, charging 
him with neglect of the Provincial matters, and re- 
ferred him to the priest at Port Royal for full infor- 
mation of the shortcomings of the Governor of 
Acadia, as it was not proper that the same should 
come from himself. He writes in his letter of himself, 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 267 

touching upon the "httle folhes" laid to his charge, 
that they did not cause M. Perrot the most vexation, 
" as I do not think there is any man under the sun 
whom interest can cause to perform such low actions, 
even so far as to deal out with his own hand in his 
own house, in the presence of strangers, the pint and 
half pint of brandy — not trusting one of his domes- 
tics to do this. I see what troubles him; he wishes to 
be the only merchant of L'Acadia — and, if it please 
God, it may be so far as I am concerned, for so long 
as he will remain in the country I shall endeavor not 
to displease him in that respect. He has never been 
willing to grant me a furlough to go to L'Isle Percee, 
because he fears I shall go as far as Quebec; neither 
would he allow me to send to Boston for mill-stones 
for a mill which the company at Port Royal had de- 
sired me to build for them, although he had prom- 
ised beforehand — before we had undertaken to build 
the mill; and now that the mill is finished and the 
mill stones paid foi', ho has changed his mind and 
has no objections to send there Mons. \'illebon, who 
has returned only fifteen days ago, and who will go 
back to Boston about the commencement of Sep- 
tember in order to bring back the bark he has built 
there." 

In this letter are intimations that M. Perrot had 
contraband intercourse with the English, and that 
the former had ''whispered in his ear that if any 
Englishman came in these quarters (Port Royal) he 
must not speak of it, and that he must say nothing." 
And one can imagine the fire that trickled out the 



268 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



ends of the St. Castin fingers as the quill ran over the 
paper under his hand. It was his first outburst, and 
no doubt he was prepared to follow it up with even 
warmer assertions. He was credited with being a 
man to whom a mean or dishonorable act was im- 
possible, having a high regard for his personal honor. 











Ml ' 



A STREET IN OLD CASTINE 



The result of this letter was the ultimate removal of 
Perrot from office, who had the fortune later to be 
taken and robbed hy pirates, as he had so long robbed 
others. 

M. de Denonville, at Quebec, writes to the French 
minister at Paris a year or two earlier (November, 
1686), of St. Castin: 

" There is at Pentagoet the Sicur de St. Castin, who 
is a gentlemanly officer in the Carignans. He is very 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 269 

daring and enterprising and clierishes the interests 
of the King, having his Hfe all the time at stake from 
the English with the Savages of the country of which 
he has become the ruler. 

''They assure me that he has recently come into 
the inheritance in France of £5,000 a year, that he is 
a man of sound understanding, hating the English 
who fear him. 

"If .Monsieur Perrot dislikes him on account of his 
government, St. Castin, by the report they have given 
me of him, should be a true man to give chase to the 
pirates and to encourage the fisheries of Monsieur de 
Chenvy, I have requested him to come to see me in 
order to become better acquainted with him, and to 
engage him to go to France, if he should appear to 
me fit for anything. 

" He is quite solicitous of honor, having some prop- 
erty, this will I)e a great helj) in sustaining a post like 
that of Port Hoyal, especially if he is not selfish. 

"My Lord our Bishop has returned from Acadia 
where he has made a visit to all the dwellings with 
great fatigue. He will send you an account of the 
great amount of disorder which there is in the forest 
from the wretched libertines who have been for a 
long time like the Savages, doing nothing towards 
cultivating the land. 

"I have written strongly about it to Monsieur 
Perrot. When we shall be at leisure it will be well for 
Monsieur dc Champigny and myself to make a tour 
there. I learn this on all sides, both that there is 
scarcely any left of the Savages and that they are 



270 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

for the most part destroyed by the excessive drinking 
of brandy." 

It is not charged to the account of St. Castin that 
he debauched his Tarratines with brandy, and it is 
doubtful if he allowed the sale of strong liquors to the 
tribe in unlimited quantities. He says in his letter to 
De Denonville, in which he writes of the obstacles 
Perrot placed in his way in the building of the mill at 
Port Royal, a part of which has been a little before 
quoted, and which throws a side-light upon the char- 
acter of the man, referring to Perrot : " If I was not on 
bad terms with him, from a feeling that every upright 
man ought to have, when he is ill-treated by his ruler 
as I have been, I should have informed you of his 
conduct; but I prefer to suffer a little longer, and that 
the matter should come to you through the letters of 
M. Petit, Priest at Port Royal, who will not fail to 
acquaint you with all, without passion, which I might 
not be able to do." And in a postscript to this letter 
one notes the following: " This that I say is very true; 
not that I am certain of anything; for I ought not to 
advance anything that I cannot sustain, even to the 
last word, and which also cannot be confirmed in the 
course of time." 

One can but admire the frankness of the man. 

M. de Menneval succeeded Perrot at Port Royal. 
He wrote a Memoir upon Acadia, and one finds this 
in it: 

" The Sieur de St. Castin is absolute master of the 
savages, the Canibas, and of all their business, being 
in the forest with them since 1665, and having with 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 271 

him two daughters of the chief of these savages by 
wiioni he has had many children. 

" This man has promised to quit the life he has led 
up to the present time (1687,) and to proceed to es- 
tablish himself at Port Royal; but having learned 
that the Sieur Perrot had an intention of causing his 
arrest and with a view of seizing his trade, he has not 
come. The Sieur de Menneval is ordered by his in- 
struction to declare to the said Sieur de St. Castin 
that His Majesty will pardon him the past, if he will 
conduct himself differently, and make his settlement 
real." 

The same writer in a report as Governor of Acadia 
almost a year later (September, 1688) makes note: 
" I have induced the Sieur de St. Castin to live a more 
regular life. He has ciuitted his traffic with the Kng- 
lish, his debauchery with the savages, he is married, 
and has promised me to labor to make a settlement in 
this country.'' 

It is evident that the imi)ressions which De Menne- 
val had of St. Castin were colored by his acquaintance 
with M. Perrot, and doubtless ujion a more intimate 
knowledge of St. Castin's character he had reason to 
revise his opinion. Possibly St. Castin had a sensing 
of the feeling of De Memieval toward him; for after 
the former had suggested to the Acadian Governor 
that with thirty men he could maintain Pentagoet 
against the English, he received the answer that "if 
he chose to alter his course and assume one more 
becoming a gentleman, his majesty would be pleased 
to pardon for the past by making a solid establish- 



272 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

merit." The pertinent suggestion was also submitted 
that "there was reason to hope that he would con- 
tribute towards the construction of the fort at Penta- 
goet, having the reputation that he had amassed con- 
siderable property." This was sufficiently sharp to 
have penetrated the most obtuse understanding, and 
St. Castin was not slow in comprehending what was 
expected of him; but he evidently did not care enough 
for the Government to make friends with it by levy- 
ing tribute upon himself or rebuilding the fort — 
probably the same occupied by the English and the 
Dutch in succession, and situated on the site of the 
old Plymouth trading-house which was close by the 
river-bank. It was the same as when we saw it upon 
our visit to Pentagoet in the previous chapter. The 
little turret with its brazen bell was there, and the 
well and the garden of fruit-trees wherein St. Castin 
was wont to solace himself and dream of the fruits 
that as a boy he thought so delicious in olden France. 
St. Castin was independent of his Government. He 
did not claim to represent the Government, but 
rather to be and hold himself as a ])rivate citizen, the 
sachem of the Tarratines, which was infinitely safer 
for him, and more to his liking. 

It has been supposed that St. Castin's house was 
without the fort. Probably it was, and for the reason 
that the fort was Government ])roperty. His inclina- 
tion to enjoy his freedom of person to its fullest ex- 
tent, and to throw off the irksome trammels of a sub- 
ordinate position, would lead him to remain outside. 
He had an abundant force of retainers in the numer- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



273 



ical support of his Tarratinos, which caused him to be 
respected by those in office; and especially was his 




influence in demand after the breaking out of the 
savage hostilities in Kl'.iO. 

James II. once crowned King of England made 
his influence felt among th(> Puritan colonics. Andros 
was here the mouthpiece of the papist James, and 



274 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

shared with him the cordial hatreds of the New Eng- 
landers, which they took occasion to vent with every 
favorable opportunity. Andros was but the faithful 
agent of the Crown. One of his duties was to make a 
personal acquaintance with the lands to the east- 
w^ard, especially to the eastward of Pemaquid. His 
royal master claimed that territory, and he had much 
curiosity to see St. Castin, of whom he had heard 
much. He had heard, too, of his wives; and being 
something of a judge of such stock, he was not averse 
to passing his criticism upon St. Castin's possibly 
good taste. The stories of his debaucheries at Pem- 
aquid on his return from Pentagoet are known to 
every reader of contemporary history. 

He had sailed down to Pemaquid, where he sated 
his appetite with its muttons and fish, and, laying in a 
supply of carpenter's stock, with the intent of putting 
the fort at Pentagoet in some reasonable sort of con- 
dition, he boarded the Rose under Captain George, 
and headed for the mouth of the Penobscot. He had 
caused notice of his approach to be sent to St. Castin, 
and, arraying himself in his most gorgeous and im- 
posing apparel, the Rose made her way up the river 
to the peninsula of Pentagoet, only to discover that 
St. Castin had shut up his residence and retired with 
his family and all his retainers to the interior, having 
little interest with any of the English, and especially 
in Andros, to whom in some degree he charged the 
seizure of his wines. The Governor had it all his own 
way, and could make his inspection of the locality at 
his leisure. Dropping anchor opposite the fort, and 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 275 

as well St. Castin's house, he debarked, only to be 
disappointed in not finding the master at home. It 
was unfortunate that St. Castin did not have time to 
remove some of his property. As Andros went from 
room to room, in one of which he found a small altar, 
while in others he came upon guns, powder, shot, 
kettles, and cloths, his desire for acquisition grew 
upon him so that he carried them all aboard the Rose, 
with the excei)tiun of the altar, and then sailed away 
to Pemaquid. It was a confiscation in '' condemna- 
tion of trading;" but he sent notice to the Baron, 
through his father-in-law, that if he wished his goods 
it was only necessary that he should come to Pema- 
(juid and swear allegiance to the King of England. As 
a sop to the savages, he called in the sachems and 
made them presents of various commodities; but St. 
Castin nursed his grievance in silence and bided his 
time. The sachems went away with tlie gifts of Andros, 
only to return two years later for the scalps of the 
settlers, and St. Castin lifted not a hand to restrain 
them. Andros had filled his cup of resentment to the 
brim, and it was a pity that this human blot on the 
integrity of the Colonies could not have been in the 
place of Captain Chubb, when D'Iberville and St. 
Castin made Fort William Henry at Pemaquid their 
own. 

Madockawando was one of the sagamores upon 
whom Andros bestowed gifts, which consisted of 
fourteen blue blankets, twelve shirts, three rolls of 
cloth, antl two l)arrels of wine, according to M. Pas- 
quine. l^ut it was a useless coquetting with the Indian 



276 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

sachem, for, as Hutchinson says, he proved '' a most 
virulent enemy. '^ It was a time of peace between 
England and France, and from any point of view 
Andros' appropriation of the property of St. Castin 
was utterly indefensible. It was to be paid for, how- 
ever, in coin of a different character than that of the 
realm. 

One can see the pompous Andros strutting through 
the humble abode of St. Castin, followed by his ob- 
sequious train, glancing with curious eye. He noted 
the small windows that were so high up that one from 
the outside could not look in. He counted the prints 
on the rude walls. There was a great fireplace in either 
gable, but it was mid-summer and the jambs were 
inhospitably cold and black. The ceilings were neither 
high nor low, and the floors were covered with soft 
furs. There were indubitable signs of feminine em- 
ployment, as if things had been dropped in a hurry — 
but the singing-bird had flown the cage. The altar 
was suggestive in its silence, but Andros had no use 
for it, and it was left as he found it; so the priest 
had no complaint to make. As for the fort, he saw it 
to be in so dilapidated a condition that he did not 
think it worth while to get out his carpenter's stock of 
plank and nails and the needed material for its re- 
habilitation. It was hardly more than a mound of 
turf and stone thrown up into a low environing scarp; 
so he left it as he found it, — a ruin. 

One finds a suggestive note in the Andros Tracts, — 
''that after Sir Edmund Andros had sent the Rose 
Frigott eastward and had rol)bed Casteen, a French 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



277 



man that had married two Indian women, the Indians 
(hd not come to their town but in a hostill manner, 
although before that time they used to come fre- 
quently and traded witii them." 

The inliabitants of Boston were greatly aroused 
over the matter, and, scoring Andros severely, offered 




'/i'^.^t' 



ij^^M^^ 







me^^ 




"^m 



ftl^^a^l3i^e 



to arrange the matter on generous terms. The enmity 
against Andros was like a fire in the woods, — it swept 
everything in its path. Madockawando has been 
credited witli a visit to Boston subsequent to the 
affair, where he admitted that St. Castin was greatly 
indignant over the affair, and that " a great war was 
apprehended," 

Increase Mather was perhajis the most furious in 
his denunciations of Andros, and terms his assistants 
"a crew that began to teach New England to Drab, 



278 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Drink, Blaspheme, Curse, and Damn. . . . What 
good did that Frigot do New England? unless this 
were so, that it fetched home the Plunder of Castaine, 
upon which began the Bloudy Warr." And it was a 
sanguinary conflict that began the following August 
by the banks of Royall's River in North Yarmouth. 
Immediately the magistrate at Saco issued his war- 
rant and a score of savages were apprehended and 
committed to Fort Loyal for detention and trial. 
Then came the raids up and down the Sagadahoc, 
wherein several settlers were killed, their herds driven 
away, and their cabins plundered. The abuse of the 
savage by the English was of a cumulative character, 
and the savage had a retentive memory. The spread of 
the English plantations was an " encroachment" upon 
the hunting-lands and fishing-grounds of the Indian. 
The white man's herds ate the Indian's maize; but 
the chief source of discontent was directly chargeable 
to the machinations of the Jesuit priests rather than 
to St. Castin's disposition to private revenge. 

The Capuchins were here early in the seventeenth 
century. Biart was here in 1612. He was followed by 
the Dreuillettes, and the Bigots. A copper plate was 
unearthed in the soil near the site of D'Aulnay's fort 
which bears the Latin inscription, — 

" 1648. I, Leo. of Paris 
Laid this Foundation in Honor of 
Our Lady of Holy Hope," 

and is suggestive of the ancient chapel that once 
stood here, with its 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 279 

"Ceiling, and walls, and windows old, 
Covered with cobwebs, blackened with mould; 
Dust on the pulpit, dust on the stairs, 
Dust on the benches, and stalls, and chairs!" 

and one wonders what became of tlic little bell that 
swung to and fro in the turret over the fort gateway. 
All have disappeared in the wreck of time, and the 
obloquy visited upon any of its remnants of the hated 
service by the Puritans, who came down here with 







REMAINS OF THE OLD FORT AT PENTAGOET 



Governor Pownal in 1759, who describes the place. 
He says: ''About noon left Wasumkeag point, and 
went in sloop Massachusetts to Pentaget, with Cap- 
tain Cargill and twenty men. Found the old aban- 
doned French Fort and some abandoned settlements. 
\\'ent ashore to the fort. Hoisted the King's colors 
there and drank the King's health. . . . To the east, 
is another Bay, called by the French Pentagoet, or 
Pentooskeag, wjicre I saw the ruins of a P>ench settle- 
ment, which from the scite and nature of the houses, 
and the remains of fields and orchards, had been once 



280 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

a pleasant habitation : One's heart felt sorrow that it 
had ever been destroyed." 

This destruction, however, was due rather to the rav- 
ages of time and the decimation of its original people 
than to the assaults of the English; for the latter were 
not much inclined to the throwing away of that which 
could be of use. In fact, there was never much of a 
French contingent here in Pentagoet's most prosper- 
ous days. Its population, according to the census of 
1689, was one priest, one married man, one married 
woman, and one boy under the age of fifteen. This 
was no doubt the family of St. Castin. 

It was in this year that Father Thury, who had for 
some time officiated at the altar of Sainte Famille, 
appreciating the danger to the Jesuit cause and his 
own personal influence, convened the Indians within 
the walls of the Chapel of our Lady of Holy Hope, 
and with an air of sadness and affliction told them 
the story of absorbing ambitions of the English, by 
which he aroused their sympathies as well as their 
animosities when he began to unfold his purpose. 
Thury, thoroughly cognizant of the history of Acadia, 
realized the weakness of the French apart from the 
support of the savages, who were like tow — only wait- 
ing for the fire and the wind to start the conflagra- 
tion. Among his people he brooked no rival; he al- 
lowed no competition. He held his office superior to 
that of St. Castin. If Rale was an enthusiast, Thury 
was a bigot, and a virulent one at that, whose hatred 
of the heretical English knew no bounds, and w^hose 
wit was always whetted to a keen edge to encompass 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 281 

their destruction. And thus spoke the wily priest to 
the untutored and revengeful savages who had come 
to hear what he had to say to them : 

"My children, when shall the rai)acity of the un- 
sparing New Knglanders cease to afiiict you? and how 
long will you suffer your lands to be violated by the 
encroaching heretics? By the religion I have taught, 
by the liberty you love, I exhort you to resist them. 
It is time for you to open your eyes which have l)een 
long shut; — to rise from your mats and look to your 
arms and make them once more bright. This land 
belonged to your fathers, long before these wicked men 
came over the great water, and are you ready to leave 
the bones of your ancestors, that the cattle of the 
heretics may cat grass on your graves? The luiglish- 
men think antl say to themselves, ' \\'e have many 
cannon: we iiavc grown strong while the red man has 
slept. While they are lying in their cal)ins and do not 
see, we will knock them on the head; we will destroy 
their women and children, and then shall possess their 
land without fear, for there shall be none to revenge 
them.' My children, God commands you to .shake the 
sleep from your eyes. The hatchet must be cleaned 
of its rust to avenge him of his enemies and secure to 
you your just rights. Night and ilay a continual 
prayer shall ascend to him for your success; an un- 
ceasing rosary shall be observed till you return cov- 
ered with the glory of triumjih." 

Such was the exhortation of the Jesuit, and such 
was the gale that fanned the fire in the savage heart 
into a flame that burst through the roofs at New 



282 THE LAND OF ST, CASTIN 

Dartmouth, so snugly clustered among the hills of 
the Sheepscot stream. Thury's listeners were swept 
from their feet; their fury burst from their throats 
to make the walls of the little chapel tremble, and a 
hundred devils crowded around its altar, where they 
made a vow to go at once to Pemaquid and never 
come back until they had captured the fort and killed 
or driven the English away. Their rage knew no 
bounds; and all this has been laid at the door of St. 
Castin, from whom, perhaps, the entire proceeding 
had been kept a secret. The latter was too politic a 
man to allow his rancor to get the better of his com- 
mon sense. The making of war on his neighbors was 
something which he left to his government. That 
this is true is justified by a quotation from the sub- 
stance of a letter written by him to his government 
from La Rochelle in 1701. One reads: 

"He has gone to France, to justify his conduct as 
regards the complaints that have been made that he 
traded with the English. 

"He grants that residing upon the frontier of the 
colony, where no Frenchman has carried thus far any 
goods, and not having been permitted to buy at Que- 
bec or in Newfoundland, he has been obliged to take 
them from the English for his most urgent wants, 
and that he has no other traffic with them than this." 

St. Castin's entire interest lay on the side of main- 
taining peaceful relations with his neighbors on the 
west. James II. had made a successful escape from 
England, and had found refuge on the French coast. 
The Andros regime was terminated by the arrest of 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 283 

that high official in Boston, and liis transportation 
to England for trial. Then came the war between 
France and England, which lent a new encouragement 
to the ])lotting of the Jesuits against the settlers, of 
which body, in Maine, Rale may be said to have been 
the Grand Master. The Jesuits were the instigators of 
the atrocities committed by the savages from the 
Kennebec to the Piscataqua. The fear that haunted 
the Jesuit brain was the proselyting of the savages to 
Protestantism. The Jesuit was clergy and school- 
master in one, and lent himself wholly to teaching the 
complete extermination of the English. 

De Nonville had been retired from the governor- 
ship of Canada, and Frontenac, who had lost none of 
his old-time vigor and capability, had been reinvested 
with his once-time authority, much to the encourage- 
ment of the aggressive element, and " his return was 
hailed by all; but by none more than the Jesuits, who 
had, in fact, for years before, labored to obtain his re- 
call;" for in the days of his first administration the 
Jesuits were the greatest obstacles in the j)athway. 

The last month on the calendar of 1689 had been 
reached, and across its seventh day had been drawn a 
smooch of ruddy color that had the shape of a toma- 
hawk as nuich as anything, for on that day tlie Massa- 
chusetts Bay people had declared war against Acadia. 
Frontenac was not behind the Puritans, but imme- 
diately sent out three expeditions on snow-shoes, 
each of which consisted of a considerable force of 
French and Indians. The objective point of the first 
was Schenectady, where the inhabitants were slaugh- 



284 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



tered in their sleep and afterward l)urned amid the 
brands of the cabins. The second fell upon the hap- 
less village of Salmon Falls, where Waldron paid the 
terrible penalty of his earlier treachery. The last 
sortie to leave Canada was led by Portneuf, straight 




A CASTINE STREET 



across the wilderness to Fort Loyal (Kaskabe, of the 
French), where he was reenforced by Madockawando 
and his Tarratines under St. Castin. 

Phipps had just sailed down the bay on his way to 
Nova Scotia to establish the English colors along the 
coast from Penobscot to Port Royal, which he did. 
With Phipps well on his voyage, the French soldiery 
and the savages made short work with the settlement 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 285 

of Falmouth. Williamson lays the breaking of the 
articles of surrender of Fort Loyal, and the subse- 
quent butchery of its seventy occupants, at the door 
of St. Castin, and charges him freely with the most 
perfidious conduct — but, as it seems, most unjustly. 
It does not appear that he had anything to do with 
the matter. He was not an officer in command, and 
it does not ap])ear that he was consulted as to the 
contract of capitulation. To be sure, he was the sa- 
chem of the Tarratines, but that tribe comprised a 
very small portion of the hundretls of savages who 
came along with Portneuf, and whose red hands he 
was powerless to stay. 

It was this year that Thomas Gyles, who had for 
some time been a captive among the Penobscot Indi- 
ans, made an attempt to escajx' from his savage thrall. 
He was recaptured and swept along to the heights of 
Maja-bagadoose, where he was put to the torture. 
His ears, one by one, were lopped off and crammed 
into his mouth, and he was made to gulp them down. 
Then the stake was driven, and the unfortunate was 
tied to it and the pitch-wood heaped about him — the 
savage devils leaping and dancing and tilling the 
woods with their exultant whoops meantime. Then 
the oozing fats of the soft wood were ignited, and the 
blaze swirled upward to ignite the slivers which pro- 
truded from his cjuivering flesh. Then came the death- 
dance, with the savages joined in a huge circle about 
the victim. It is the only instance of torture by the 
Tarratines: as if that one were not enough. It was, 
howev(>r, a common thing among the tribes to the 



286 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

west and south, who were of a more cruel and treach- 
erous disposition. 

It was natural, upon the opening of the war, that 
St. Castin should side with his countrymen, nor was 
it unreasonable that the English should credit St. 
Castin with some feeling of satisfaction at the English 
disaster. He would hardly be human did he not re- 
gard the punishments of the English as just, after the 
affronts and injuries put upon him without provoca- 
tion. Hutchinson says: ''The Indians informed some 
of their captives that Castine furnished every Indian 
engaged against the English with a pound of powder, 
two pounds of lead and a quantity of tobacco." Sup- 
pose it were true, — and some annalists have suggested 
that the report wants confirmation, — was he at all 
without his right in so doing? The English dealt out 
the same commodity to the Mohawks, to be used 
against the French interest. The earlier annalists were 
not averse to smirching St. Castin upon all occasions; 
but time has smoothed over the rough places, and 
one delights to look at the man as he might have ap- 
peared upon acquaintance under his house-roof at 
Pentagoet. Few men are without their passions, their 
likes and dislikes, and environment has much to do 
with their conduct. It is not to be imagined that a 
man, isolate upon Robinson Crusoe's Island, would 
be quite the same in concept of manners as at a so- 
ciety levee. 

That he was an excellent adviser of the French was 
certain, but he was apparently willing to lend his 
good offices to the English prisoner whenever he had 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTIN 2(S7 

()l)l)()rtunity. He was especially just in his demands 
upon the English that they should conform to the 
rules of exchange in war. This was exemplified in the 
position taken by him in the matter of the Chevalier 
d'Eau, held by the English. There were English in 
■ the hands of the Abenake, and 8t. Castin notified the 
Massachusetts Bay Government that if they w(nild 
have him act as an intermediary in securing the re- 
lease of the English, they must as well conform to the 
principle of honorable dealing, insisting upon the 
release of tiie Chevalier. 

It was about this time that the Massachusetts Bay 
people, with their accustomed desire to get the best 
end of the bargain, laid a j^lot to kidnap St. Castin. 
It was in the fall of 1692 that two French deserters 
hapi)ened into Boston. They brought letters from one 
John Nelson, a Puritan prisoner at Quebec, with the 
information that the French were fitting out a fleet 
for the subjugation of the eastern English settlements; 
also some intimations that Madockawando was dis- 
contented with the French. Nelson's money had been 
the inducement, and the Bay authorities carefully 
looked Arnaud de \'ignon and Francis Albert over for 
further investment, having in mind to use them as 
the instruments of their plot against St. Castin. There 
were in Boston at that time among the French i)ris- 
oners Jaques Petipas and Charles de Loreau, Sieur 
de St. Aubin, residents of Acadia, with their families. 
These latter, very anxious to get home to Acadia, 
were willing to promise anything to get away from 
the English. Their families were to be retained as 



288 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

hostages while they went on their treacherous mis- 
sion. 

One can imagine the midnight conferences of these 
amateur conspirators, the talking over of the numer- 
ous plans and traps whereby the lion was to be caught 
in the toils; how he was to be disposed of, once cap- 
tured; and remind one of iEsop's fable of "Belling 
the Cat." It must have required numerous meetings, 
and much good licjuor must have been abused, be- 
fore matters had been ]3roperly adjusted; but it was 
no new business to the authorities of good old Boston, 
for it was always a nest of conspirators from the time 
the Episcopalians began their settlements in the 
county of New Somersetshire. Anything was legiti- 
mate that would redound to the temporal or spiritual 
welfare of the Puritan propaganda, and much was 
furthered under its sheltering wing that Winthrop 
forgot to mention in his quaint old Journal. 

But the kidnappers started on their journey, the 
Acadians anxious only to get beyond the jurisdiction 
of Massachusetts Bay, while the deserters, Vignon 
and Albert, jingling a part of the purchase-price in 
their pockets, Judas-like, went along, on treachery 
intent. Once in French territory, the Acadians re- 
vealed the plot to the authorities, detailing the plan, 
and the part the deserters had in it as the ring-lead- 
ers. They were immediately arrested and taken to 
Quebec, where, after being confronted with Nelson, 
they were shot in the presence of the Englishman, who 
was afterward sent to France, where he was shut up 
in the Bastille. After eleven years Nelson found his 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 



289 



way to Boston, but whether he evi^r ascertained who 
had so illy befriended him by sending his bribe-takers 
back to Quebec has found no recorder. 




ONE OF THE TILDEN ANCESTRY 



The loyalty of Petipas and St. Aubin was well 
rewarded, for the Acadian Governor, De "\'illebon, 
promulgated an edict with De Bonaventure and 



290 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

D'Ibcrville, the chief officers of the frigate " Legare, 
now anchored at the Isle of the Desert Mountains," 
that these simi:)le yet honest Acadians should be given 
goods of the value of five hundred and fifty-four francs 
"for the important service they had just rendered to 
Canada," in their revelation of the identity of Vignon 
and Albert, " who had carried letters to the English, 
and who had come back with the intention of cap- 
turing M. St. Castin and of giving him up to the Eng- 
lish." That there w^as ever any possibility of success, 
had these kidnappers held together, is much to be 
doubted, as St. Castin was an astute man, who had 
grown watchful in these latter days. This was in 1692, 
and affairs were rather mixed, though sharply enough 
dehned, with Phipps beginning the erection of Fort 
William Henry at Pemaquid, which the French had 
anticipated for themselves, only that the}' were fore- 
stalled by the energetic Governor from Boston. 

The building of the fort went on, and the Indians 
kept at their atrocities, in which St. Castin does not 
seem to have taken any part. The French were still 
weak along the coast, and the English were extending 
their operations. St. Castin saw that it would not be 
long before the English would he able to maintain 
their supremacy, and it so came al)Out that in 1693 he 
gave in his adhesion to the English Crown ; though the 
English possession of the Penobscot was but nomi- 
nal, and St. Castin's allegiance could not have had 
much heart in it, for shortly after that Sieur Villieu, 
a French officer, was in command at Pentagoet. The 
census this year gave Pentagoet a total of fourteen 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 291 

inhabitants, among whom were " Castin, aged 57, his 
wife and one chikl/' That St. Castin was in the inter- 
est of the French in 1695 is evidenced by his going to 
Rutherford's Island and conducting an exchange of 
prisoners with the Enghsh, taking ''charge of the 
business alone in the name of Count de Frontenac." 
St. Castin had an ample body-guard of savages, which 
went along in fifty canoes. But the English were get- 
ting some foothold among the Indians, for it is to be 
noted that the year before Governor Phipps secured a 
deed from Matlockawando of the lands mentioned in 
the Beaucham}) and Leverett grants made by the 
Council of Plymouth in 1629. The conveyance is 
indicative of the familiarity between the races, al- 
though neither had any confidence in the other. But 
the English were unfortunate in choice of material to 
represent their interest, else they were intentionally 
imj)olitic. A lack of dii)lomacy with the French and 
Indians had been notoriously apparent from the be- 
ginning on the part of the English. 

A fair illustration is afforded in the episode at Fort 
William Henry in February of 1696. This fort had 
shortly before been completed under the supervision 
of Governor Phipps at a great expense to the Colony, 
nearly £20,000, from the embrasures of which bristled 
fifteen cannon, with an amply stored magazine, and 
manned by ninety-five soldiers, which overlooked the 
westerly harbor of Pemaquid. It was considered to 
have been the most important fortification on the 
coast eastward, and well-nigh impregnable. The in- 
glorious Captain Pasco Chubb was in command, and 



292 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

it was in this month of February that he was visited 
by the sagamores; Egeremet of the Machias Tribe, 
Abenaquid of the Penobscots, and Toxus of the 
Norridgewocks. Some of their savage followers came 
along with them. Raising a flag of truce, the savages 
were admitted to the fort, where they declared their 
errand, which was to effect an exchange of prisoners. 
From the moment of their entering the fort, Chubb 
had entertained the idea of violating the truce and 
making the three famous chiefs his prisoners. It was 
the English way. No sooner did its feasibility pre- 
sent itself than Chubb proceeded to dispose of his 
men to carry out his treachery, which resulted in the 
killing of Egeremet and Abenaquid, and the escape 
of the fierce Toxus. With the exception of one or two 
of the train, the savages all got away. It was a de- 
testable performance and sounded the knell of Fort 
William Henry, for the savages were aroused to an 
unwonted fury and revenge. 

The ice had gone out of the streams, and for the 
white mantle of winter had come the leafage of the 
early summer. Life at Fort William Henry kept its 
wonted quiet, but it was the lull before the storm. 
There was a cloud in the east no bigger than a man's 
hand, but as it came nearer it loomed into the w^hite 
sails of the L'Envieux and the La Profonde. DTber- 
ville commanded the former, and De Bonaventure 
the latter. This was the expedition despatched by 
Frontenac for the subjugation of Pemaquid. The 
Newport, a twenty-four gun ship, was captured off 
Mont Desert and sent into St. John, while DTberville 



THE LAX I) OF ST. CAST IN 293 

kept his course to Pemaquicl, in the close vicinity of 
wliich lie found his savage allies awaiting him to the 
number of two hundred and fifty, to whom he gave a 
feast, at the same time liest owing ui)on them gifts to 
the value of four thousand livres. These were Fron- 
tenac's message to the savages. The Indians had fol- 
lowed down from Pentagoet in their canoes, along with 
De A'illieu and De Mortigny and his twenty-five sol- 
diers. They were accomjianied by St. Castin and the 
Jesuit priests Thurv and Simon. According to the 
New York Documentary Collection, there were two 
hundred and forty of the savages, who were under the 
command of St. Castin. 

On August 14th Fort William Henry was fairly in- 
vested, and perhaps the story of its fall may be of 
interest, so a detailed account of the engagement 
is warranted. The fort was located about two leagues 
from the outer extremity of Pema<iuid Point, and 
was a formidable defense in those (.lays of smooth- 
bores and light-weight projectiles. It occupied a 
favorable, even a commanding, position, and it was 
capable of a protracted antl ))erhaps successful main- 
tenance against the force which DTI)erville had at 
his command. Occupying the upper edge of an ex- 
tensive plateau, it overlooked the water api)roaches, 
and Charlevoi.x says: ''If it had been defended by 
brave men the result of the siege might have been 
different. Nothing required for a long defense was 
wanting; the powder-magazine was proof against all 
bombs, excejit a small spot, because a rock against 
which it rested formed a jiart of its vault and walls, 



294 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

and nothing could be better devised or more conve- 
nient that the quarters for the officers and men." 

During the night D' Iberville had landed two mor- 
tars and two heavy guns within a half-league from 
the fort, and he had posted Villieu and the savages 
opposite its easterly wall. Chubb was summoned to 
surrender, but boastingly refused. At that, the sav- 
ages answered with a musket fire to which the guns 
of the fort responded, and with which the activities 
of the first day were closed. That night the mortars 
and guns from the ship were placed in position and 
every preparation was made for a vigorous assault 
with the break of day. A second summons was sent 
in demanding the surrender of the fort, but Chubb 
was obdurate. The chip on his epaulettes had grown 
over night, and he had a mind to taste the soup of the 
French before taking what shortly after seemed to 
him the course of sound discretion. Then the echoes 
of ancient Pemaquid awoke and the Dutch pavements 
vibrated to the urgent tread of the mortars. One after 
another of the bombs rose into the sunlit air to leave 
along their curving trajectories slender trails of smoke, 
to hurtle downward into the midst of Chubb's sol- 
diers, until six had fallen within the walls of the fort, 
where they burst, as it was expected they would, 
creating a dire confusion and great palpitation of the 
heart among the besieged. The English found the first 
course too hot to suit their taste and were inclined to 
look over the bill of fare the second time. Much to 
their disma}^, they found the French bombs accom- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 295 

panied each course, and for desert were the tomahawk 
and the scalping-knife. 

It was at this juncture that St. Cast in, whatever 
may have been his motive, and one Hkes to accord it 
to the side of humanity, was able to get a letter into 
the fort urging immediate capitulation, as the French 
commander had definite orders neither to make terms 
or give quarter if it were necessary to take the fort by 
an assault; and he would not be responsible for the 
English once the savages had reached its inner walls, 
who were furious for revenge for the killing of I-]ger- 
emet and Abenaquid. Chul)l)"s reply was i)rompt, 
exacting only that his troops should be i)rotected 
upon their relinciuishment of the fort, and that they 
should be taken to Boston safely. 

It was upon such terms the garrison marched out- 
ward through its single gateway, and were taken in 
shallops to an adjacent island; l)ut not before the 
savages, raging at the escajx- of their prey and at 
finding one of their race in ciiains in the fort, had he- 
gun an assault uj>on the unarmed hjiglish — to be 
beaten back by the French until all were safely away 
under guard. The savage held as a prisoner was 
but half alive, aiul, according to Father Badouin, so 
heavily ironed that nearly two hours were used u]) in 
tiling the shackles from his limbs. It required the 
utmost effort on the part of St. Castin and the French 
officers to keep the infuriated .savages from wreaking 
their vengeance upon the Engli.sh, notwithstanding 
the temis of capitulation, which were fulfilled to the 
letter. 



296 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

Once in possession, De Villieu and his soldiers be- 
gan the dismantling of the fort, after which' it was 
reduced to a picture of complete devastation, upon 
which Chubb and his soldiers were compelled to look 
before their conveyance to Boston. Here Chubb was 
charged with cowardice and imprisoned, but only for 
a few months, when he returned to his family in An- 
dover, to be slain by the savages some two years later 
in repayment of his cruelty to their people at Pema- 
quid. It was a delayed vengeance, but it was sure, 
and affords a trite illustration of the tireless hatred 
of the savage once it was aroused. 

After the laying waste of Pemaquid came the peace 
of Ryswick, September 11, 1697. Madockawando was 
dead. In October the Massachusetts Commissioners, 
Major Converse and Captain Alden, came down to 
Pentagoet to hold a conference with the Indians. 
They were met by six sachems and a great body of 
savages, and although they were mourning the death 
of the great Madockawando, they went through their 
usual indulgence of song and dance, to finally smoke 
the pipe of peace. One of the conditions laid down 
by the Commissioners was that the Jesuits should be 
banished. The savages consented to the release of 
the prisoners in their hands, but insisted that the 
''good missionaries must not be driven away." 

The next year Alden was trading here with St. 
Castin, buying furs of him and a son-in-law, and sell- 
ing goods in return; for the inhabitants were unwilling 
to make disposition of their furs to the French. The 
English suited them better. One of the priests here 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 297 

at the time was an open trader, a fact which gave 
some umbrage; but the trade went on, — St. Castin 
sending his furs to Boston, and taking his pay in Eng- 
lish goods. This interfered seriously with the French 
traffic, and though the latter tried to ingratiate them- 
selves with the Indians by offering them presents to 
get their good will, yet by reason of the influence of 
St. Castin and his Jesuit priest the savages would 
have none of the gifts of the French. The reason 
given for this state of affairs was that while M. Vil- 
lieu was inclined to be generous with his presents, he 
wished at the same time to sell them brandy, which 
they did not care to buy, " foreseeing the excess 
into which they fall when intoxicated." 

But St. Castin was nearing his threescore years, if 
he had not quite passed them, and he began to have 
thoughts of sunny France, to which he had so long 
been a stranger. He must have had news from time 
to time from over the sea, and he must have known 
of his father's death ; and with that thought lingering 
in his mind, his desires must have reverted often to 
the old chateau in Oleron. With the fall of Fort 
William Henry, St. Castin's activities by land and 
sea were practically at an end. His son Anselm, by 
his first wife, Mathilde, had reached a young man's 
estate, and, in a way, like his father, was to achieve 
some distinction in arms as in peace, and upon him 
St. Castin was inclined to place some of his burdens, 
and to him not long after fell the noble title of 
Baron de St. Castin. 

The elder St. Castin wearied of the vicissitudes of 



298 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

the wilderness, and as the house fires began to light 
up the winter evenings of 1700-01, flashing their 
yellow flames up and down the walls of St. Castin's 
living-room, they painted pictures for him which he 
had long forgotten to look upon. He grew reminis- 
cent, and he all at once saw, as one looking out a 
window, 

" The village Curate, with lantern and maid, 
Come through the gateway from the park 
And cross the court-yard, damp and dark, — 
A ring of light in a ring of shade," 

and he was minded to go through that same gateway, 
and to take his wife along with him, of course. He 
knows, 

" For many a year the old chateau 
Lies tenantless and desolate; 
Rank grasses in the court-yard grow, 
About its gables caws the crow ; 
Only the porter at the gate 
Is left to guard it, and to wait 
The coming of the rightful heir." 

He knows no more that ring of light in its ring of 
shade winds over the dew-wet grass at dusk ; for 

"No more the Curate comes at night, 
No more is seen the unsteady light," 

dancing in the dark like a will-o'-the-wisp. As St. 
Castin watches the fire the dreams come, and he is 
telling his wife, Marie, of the old place they are going 
to see when the warm days of spring come. He 
laughs like the boy he used to be, and the good wife 
pleases him by telling him he is growing young. He 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTIN 



299 



calls in Anselm, and they have long talks together of 
wjiat he must do when he is gone on his journey, and 
he makes his plans like a soldier who is about to enter 
upon an important campaign; for there is much to 
do, and he is to take his accumulations along, which 
make up an ample fortune of well-nigh three thou- 
sand crowns in "good dry gold." His heart is so 







DYCE'S HEAD LIGHT 



aglow with his anticipations that he has sent word 
beforehand that he is coming, and he can hardly 
await the advent of the south winds and the birds, 
for they were never so slow before. As for the Baron- 
ess, her dreams are colored with the tales her hus- 
band has been pouring into her ears the whole winter 
through, and, like a child who is to make its first visit 
to town, she can hardly sleep for the crowding of her 
thought. She fidgets through the days until she is 



300 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

weary of looking down the river for the first singing- 
birds and the first hints of spring verdure. But the 
day comes when she rushes through the long, low 
rooms to find the Baron, and with her arms thrown 
about his shaggy neclv she laughs in his ears that the 
ice is going down the river, and that she had heard 
the bluejay's spring notes, and that the crows were 
holding a pow-wow on the hills of Biguydoose. It is 
then St. Castin bethinks him to look in the truth- 
telling mirror, that swift reveals to him the 

" bearded cheek 
And white and wrinkled brow," 

shadowed by a drift of whitened hairs, that in 

" The slanted sunbeams glance. 
In the harsh outhnes of his face 
Passion and sin have left their trace; 
Yet, save worn brow and thin gray hair, 
No signs of weary age are there. 

His step is firm, his eye is keen, 
Nor years in broil and battle spent. 
Nor toil, nor wounds, nor pain have bent 
The lordly frame of old Castine." 

He is satisfied with that patrician face, seamed and 
hardened like the stone walls of the old chateau to 
which he is so soon going, and with a soft glint in 
his eye he smiles back at the counterfeit presentment 
opposite him; and another portrait comes, for his 
sweet wife has nestled within the shelter of his arm, 
and 

"Whose garb and tone and kindly glance 
Recalled a younger, happier day, 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 301 

And prompted memory's fond essay 
To bridge the mighty waste which lay 
Between his wild iiome and that gray, 
Tall chateau of his native France. 
Whose chapel-bell with far-heard din 
Ushered his birth-hour gayly in, 
And counted witii its solemn toll 
The masses for his father's soul." 

One day a .shij) .sailed up the river and ancliored. 
It was not long after that the old curate, hi.s feet 
clumsy with the weight of years, ambled up the vil- 
lage street towards the old OU'ron chateau, where 

" He stops at the porter's lodge to say 
That at last the Baron of St. Castine 
Is coming home with his Indian Queen, 
Is coming without a week's delay; 
And all the hou.se must be swept and clean, 
And all things set in good array! " 

What a house-cleaning there must have been! What 
a brushing of cobwebs and a whisking of brooms, and a 
cleaning up of the lawn, a picking up of the dead limbs 
that the wanton winds had twisted off when the win- 
ter swooped tlown from the mountains. The great 
fires swirled up the chimneys and dried up the mould 
on the walls, and the swifts trooped from out the 
chimney-tops, where they had squatted for so many 
years, and circled high in air, in their dismay at such 
peremptory proceedings, to awake the rooks from 
their somnolency to catch the infection of the Mas- 
ter's coming. 

"Alert since first the day began, 
The cock upon tiie village church 



302 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

Looks northward from his airy percli, 
As if beyond the ken of man 
To see the ships come saiUng on, 
And pass the Isle of Oleron," 

while the curate, who had played so many games of 
lansquenet at the chateau in bygone days, trembled 
under the burden of his anxieties, and the villagers 
busied themselves getting out their gay holiday at- 
tire for the fetes that were sure to come with the wel- 
coming they had in store for the lord of the manor 
and his JDride. 

They were all there, agog with delight, — the delight 
of a mob of children, — these simple peasants, con- 
sumed with a marvelling curiosity; all but 

" the feet 
That Avoiild have been swift to meet 
The coming of that wayward boy," 

that had years before come to the end^of their pacing 

"to and fro 
Through the chambers of the old chateau, 
Waiting and waiting to hear the hum 
Of wheels on the road that runs below, 
Of servants scurrying here and there, 
The voice in the court-yard, the step on the stair;" 

but the sun goes down — the shadows creep through 
the park, and the gargoyles under the eaves grin as 
if convulsed with silent mirth; the swallows chatter 
their bedtime gossip until the lights come out in the 
castle windows, and the chateau is ablaze with good 
cheer and hospitable anticipation. 



THE LAXD OF ST. (ASTIN 



303 



The poller is at the great gates, nor does he lack 
for company, with the villagers in a huddle of joyous 
tumult about his threshold, where the tongues wag 
with a sound like the humming of a swarm of bees in 
May. But listen! 

"There's a sound of wheels and hoot's in the street, 
A cracking of whips, and scamper of feet, 
Bells are ringing, and horns are blowing. 
And the Baron hath come again to his own." 




Wi..a 














.-^7^ 



i^,^ 



C^.a:0^ ^l^d 



THE HOOKE HOUSE 



Once more at tlie (31eron of his boyhood, as the days 
go, a disapj)ointment smites his lu^art as he scrutinizes 
the habitues of the ])lace for some familiar lineament 
whereon he may plant a germ of recognition. The 
good old curate and the rheumatic porter Renaud, 
who played at foils with him, and who taught him the 
lessons one never forgets, the mystery of a woodland 



304 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

snare, are all that seem left to him; but they are so 
old that the span of his absence has widened out in- 
terminably. 

Though St. Castin has come to his own again, he 
has difficulty in fitting himself into the old i)laces, so 
pygmy-like seems everything after the great out- 
doors of the Pentagoet wilderness; and compared with 
his Tarratines, these Oleron folk are a stunted race. 
He glances furtively at the old chateau from founda- 
tion-stone to turret-top as he strolls under the lime- 
trees in the park, as if its intimacies were not yet fully 
accomplished. Even the mountains and the skies are 
not the same. The Pyrenees are but huge pinnacles 
of rock that have lost their mystery, while the sky 
seems but a patch of blue above the verdurous fres- 
coes of the tree-tops. 

Within the chateau it was the same. The turret- 
stairs were strangely shortened and narrow, and the 
window, half way up, was but a slit in the wall ; then 
he seemed always hitting his elbows against things. 
His thought flew away to Pentagoet, Mercury-like. 
Think of it as he would, it was hardly the great place 
in which his boyhood was swathed, else the lodge- 
gates, smaller and narrower than ever, had taken a 
stride nearer the stone steps of the pillared portico. 
The village streets, dwindled to a yellow path between 
the thatched roofs, were being swallowed up amid 
their overgrown hedges, and the old family coach 
seemed to sway perilously near the low eaves as it 
went up or down — and a stuffy affair it was, to 
double one up so uncomfortal)ly! He knew it was the 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 305 

grand vehicle of his youth, for tliere was an unheak'd 
scar on the door-panel, and there was the tingle of a 
switch about his short breeches that lingered tren- 
chantly in his memory as the penalty of his careless- 
ness; but there it was, the same old stone-bruise on 
its cracked and faded yellow door-panel. It was one 
of the memories that brought a smile and limbered 
his tongue as he pointed it out to the Haroness. All, 
even to the low-browed hood that overhung the por- 
tico pilasters and the stone steps, had shifted 

"Into the lean and slippered pantaloon, 
With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side, 
His youthful hose," 

of crowding memories, 

"well-saved, a world too wide 
For his shrunk shank," 

the inevitable penalty of age. 

Strange tales have come over the sea of the stranger 
adventures of the Baron, and his retainers are puffed 
with pride and mingled jollity that the old chateau 
is to be onc(> more the scene of its okl-time good cheer 
and prodigality, for the St. Castins were never ungen- 
erous or forgetful of their dejiendents. 

The happiest of all is the old curate, who has grown 
childish in his aging; and as he sits once more beside 
the fire that is singing on the baronial hearth, and 
sniffs again the fragrant odors from the kitchen, he 
toasts his lean shins in the friendly warmth, munches 
his cake between his toothless gums, and sips his wine 



306 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

with garrulous recollections, filling the blank pauses 
with tales of the ancient days and the boyish pranks 
of his graying host. The old game of lansquenet be- 
gins again, and as he jjlays with the gruff old soldier 
he gazes upon the marvellous beauty of the Baroness, 
and 

"Transfigured and transfused, he sees 
The lady of the Pyrenees, 
The daughter of an Indian chief. 
Beneath the shadow of her hair 
The gold-bronze color of her skin 
Seems lighted by a fire within, 
As when a burst of sunhght shines 
Beneath a sombre grove of pines, — - 
A dusky splendor in the air." 

But the Baroness sits and dreams, or watches the 
lansquenet-players; else she wanders over the chateau, 
trying hard to get acquainted with its great rooms 
and her retainers, who strive to anticipate her slight- 
est wish. But the delighted curate eyes her as she 
goes and comes, and all he can liken her to is the dusky 
rose that blooms among the trellises that flank the 
wide portico these summer days. 

"And ah! he cannot believe his ears 
When her melodious voice he hears 
Speaking his native Gascon tongue; 
The words she utters seem to be 
Part of some poem of Goudouli. 
They are not spoken, they ai'e sung! 
And the Baron smiles, and says, ' You see, 
I told you but the simple truth; 
Ah, you may trust the eyes of youth!'" 

The curate and the Baron get on very well together, 
for the former never tires of listening to the Baron's 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



307 



stories of that far land, which to him is only New 
France. There is so much to hear and so many c|ues- 
tions to ask that it is night only too quickly, and the 
light goes wavering and twisting through the dim 
shadows of the park as in the old days, only it is a 
stout peasant-lad who carries the flickering lanthorn 
instead of the once-time maid. 




THE CASTLE 



The days go swiftly to the Baroness, and as the 
firelight dances up antl down the panelled wains- 
coting of the great living-room, and the evenings 
grow longer, St. Cast in dozes in his chair, for the 
times have grown lazy with him. She had dreams of 
old Pentagoet: and while the j)ark at Oleron is beau- 
tiful, and the vine-clad hills are golden at sunset, or 
purple in the dawn, and the sward is like velvet, yet 
she sighs for the smell of the wood-smokes of the Tar- 
ratines, the song of the river, and the color of the 
Pentagoet woods. Child of Nature, she longs for a 



308 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

touch, just a touch, of the old wild things, — an 
inbreathing of the sweet odors of the swamp-rose; 
for the great wide woods with their brown carpetings 
that begin at the crest of the hill that overlooks the 
mouth of the silvery Penobscot. She sees pictures 
when her eyes are closed to the yellow flame on the 
curiously tiled hearth, — where the bay runs up into 
the land, while the warm sun lays over all so softly; 
the old fort she knew in her girlhood, that overlooks 
the ripples of the tide from uplifted banks, is painted 
against her closed lashes; and then, there is the slow 
rise of the lands behind, and half w^ay up the slope; 
the orchard, whose fruits to her were the sweetest 
and rarest in the world. Below is the wide stretch 
of the mighty river, twisting and bending like a 
hunter's bow between the woodland rims, and the 
canoes, and the loose-flapping sails of the infrequent 
ships off-shore. Nothing of the white-capped Pyr- 
enees reminds her of the blue hills to eastward; the 
isolate dome of huge Katahdin; or the bald rocks 
of Mont Desert, down the bay; the smell of the salt 
winds, or the pungent breath of the pines ; — yet she 
inbreathed them all, over seas that they wTre. 

But the fire burned on and the lights in the chateau 
windows shone like low-down stars while the visions 
came and faded out. A wonderful place was the old 
chateau, and there was magic in its airs, for she was 
seeing Pentagoet as she never saw it before; but it 
was the Baron's home, — as if that were not enough, 
— and here was a land of peace, of plenty, where the 
skies were ruddy, but not with the fires which ate up 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 309 

the cabins of the settler, or the stain of blood which 
dripped from Black Point to Quebec. 

It is said that St. Castin had a longing for the old 
life of freedom in the heart of the woods; that, unable 
to recover his great fortune in the hands of the Lieu- 
tenant-General of Oleron, wjio had for twenty years or 
more enjoyed its income of £5,000 annually, and 
which was finally lost altogether to St. Castin and his 
descendants, and restive under the injustice of the 
government in not compelling restitution, he returned 
to Acadia; hut that is doul)tful, for he did not long 
survive his return to France, having died before 1708. 
That he had an idea of so doing is evident, as he asked 
the government for a land grant on the river " De la 
Pointe au Hestre," where he had some intent of going 
into the fishery trade at " Molue," taking his remnant 
of Tarratines along with him. This, however, he never 
did, and one is pleased to think of him as being laid 
away under the eaves of the old parish church where 
he was christened. He had little cause for anxiety, 
with his Anastasie and the younger Therese so well 
married, and Anselm, the elder son, bearing the name 
so cleverly, while, according to L'Auvergat (Lauver- 
jait), the younger, Joseph Dabadis, was sowing his 
wild oats with a lavish hand. But the strictures of 
the priest must be taken with numerous grains of 
allowance, for the junior St. Castins were of the same 
peaceable proclivities as their father, and did not 
enter very enthusiastically into the instigations of 
L'Auvergat among the Tarratines to keep at their 
bloody raiding of the English settlements. 



310 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



The bitterness of L'Auvergat against the sons is 
well evidenced by an extract from a letter to Father 
La Chasse, in which he accuses Anselm of not caring 
"to marry, and not satisfied with spreading corrup- 
tion through the whole village, in addition to that, 
now makes a business of, selling brandy openly, in 
company with his nephew, the son of M. de Belle 
Isle. The younger Castin never comes into the village 




THE NEW ST. FAMILLE, INDIAN TOWN 



without getting drunk and putting the whole village 
in an uproar." It is evident that he did not find the 
St. Castins so plastic as he desired, for the priest was 
constant in his stirring up of the savages, and accused 
the St. Castins of apathy in the concerns of the gov- 
ernment; which was the true solution of his complaint. 
Had they the same thirst for the blood of the English 
settler as had L'Auvergat, and been compliant to his 
plots, perhaps the offspring of the famous Baron 
would not have been smirched with so scandalous an 
accusation. 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 311 

Anselm was at Beam in 1722, and was as unfortu- 
nate as his father had been in liis efforts to obtain the 
restitution of his seignorial rights, being put off upon 
one pretense and another — the chief est of which was 
his illegitimacy, in spite of abundant evidence of the 
legality of his contention. He was later at Sainte 
Famille; but twenty years after, the parish was in 
ruins, though a remnant of the Tarratines was to be 
found along the river. Many relics of the occupancy 
of St. Cast in have been unearthed from time to time, 
— coins and Indian curiosities, and notably a copper 
plate, some eight by ten inches square, upon which 
was engraved: 

"1648, ^Junii, 

F rater Leo Parisien^ii<, 

in Capuchinorum Missione, 

posiii hoc fundarnentum 

in honorem nostrae Domine Sanctae Spei." 

This plate was without doubt the one which has been 
described as being nailed ''over the gateway" of the 
old fort at Pentagoet. It is proof that the Capuchins 
were in the Pentagoi't field at an early date. Doubt- 
less the little bell was liung at the same time. 

The great find of coins was made by Captain Grin- 
die, in 1840, on the bank of the Bigatluce River, at a 
place some six miles from the Pentagoet fort. There 
were some five hundred in all, and were taken from 
about a stone that lay in the old trail along shore 
that was used in going from the Pentagoet peninsula 
to Mont Desert and what is now Frenchman's Bav. 



312 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

They were no doubt hidden here by St. Castin, as he 
likewise buried his gold in other places; for there was 
no safety in keeping it at the fort. In all the raids 
made by one and another of the expeditions against 
St. Castin's trading-house there is no record of any 
money being taken. It was always merchandise, arms, 
and ammunition. St. Castin was too wise to trust his 
wilderness-earned gains to the times, for they were 
unsettled, and the buccaneers sailed into the Penob- 
scot Bay whenever they were in the region, whereupon 
St. Castin usually took to the woods. Other coins have 
been found in the vicinity of the old fort. 

Anselm and his brother were the last of the race at 
Sainte Famille, and not altogether are they forgotten. 
The soil of beautiful Castine is rich with the tradi- 
tions of the ancient Jesuit parish, for it was here 
that, for a quarter of a century, the St. Castins made 
history. (Jnly their story is left of it all. 

St. Castin, the Baron, was a romantic character, 
and it is unfortunate that he had Perrot and De Men- 
neval for enemies; for it is from the former springs 
the gossip of St. Castin's alleged libidinous disposi- 
tion, and from the latter the retouching of the loose 
pictures painted by the covetous and unprincipled 
Perrot ; and while these unjjleasant tales have through 
them become matters of documentary record, they 
are nothing but hearsay. La Hontan, who was his 
personal friend, says St. Castin had but one wife, 
"showing the savages that God is not pleased with in- 
constant men." That he may have had his youthful 
follies is beyond controversy. The gross charges 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 313 

against him. however, are to be heavily discounted if 
his honoral)h' tlealings with his feUows, his forbear- 
ance under contumely, — despoiled as he was at times 
of his proi)erty, — his humanity, and his loyalty to 
his Indian wife, Marie, are not to be gainsaid. His 
character is highly comparable with his contempora- 
ries, east or west of the Penobscot, and his times; and 







,r 



>- 



m iiiii^^id 



%cii^' -*'^ "tt*v *f r|^r>|et), 



one should go to the standard of his actions among 
men, rather than to the wagging tongues of Perrot 
and De Menneval, who were his rivals in trade and 
influence, for the verification of his reputation. 

The Castine of to-day is as jiicturcsquely charming 
as when 

"Far eastward, o'er the lovely bay, 
Penobscot's clustered wigwams lay," 

dozing in the summer sunlight; but it is .shorn of the 
wildncss of that far-off day when 



314 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



"The warriors of the wilderness, 
Painted and in their battle-dress," 

went swiftly down these placid waters to join D'lber- 
ville in his attack on Pematiuid. But now, as then, 

" The bladed grass revives and lives, 
Pushes the mouldering waste away, 
And glimpses of an April day, 
In kindly shower and sunshine bud 
The branches of the dull gray wood ; 
Out from its sunned and sheltered nooks 
The blue eye of the violet looks," 

and these are all left of the romance of the Parish of 
Sainte Famille, the gift of unerring Nature. 



:^~3^ 




L'ISLE DES MONTS DESERTS 




MONT DESERT 



LISLE DES MONTS DESERTS 

III! interest of the antiquary in the 
famous Mont Desert Island cen- 
tres in and about picturesciue 
Somes' Sound. It is there one gets 
jllinipses of the places where for 
a little sojourned the French, and 
as well where tradition finds its 
most fertile soil; a locality where 
there is more of tragedy tiian ro- 
mance in its coloring; for Bar Har- 
bor seems to ha\-e the monopoly of the latter with 
the opening of the summer season, — the romance 
of the summer idler. 

From a historical point of view, one's first acipiaint- 
ance with 

"The pray and tluiiulor-smitten pile 
Which marks afar the Desert Isle " 
317 




318 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

is through the September voyage of 1604, when De 
Monts and Champlain sailed away from the Island of 
the Holy Cross for the Penobscot, in search of the 
fabled city of which Ingram told such wild and fan- 
tastic tales. The first island to be christened as they 
left the St. Croix was Isle au Haut, leaving which 
they ran upon a hidden reef, staving a ragged hole in 
the keel of their pattache, or little bark, to find them- 
selves under the lee of a mighty heap of bald rock, 
where they dropped anchor; where, on an adjacent 
spit of land, they saw the upcurling smoke of a sav- 
age wigwam, their first meeting with the aborigines 
of Norumbega, who led them a few days later beyond 
the peninsula of Pentagoet into the country of the 
famed Bessabez, the Kadesquit for which the Guerche- 
ville Colony was to set out a short seven years later. 
The aborigine told Champlain that this baldly moun- 
tainous island was called Pematici, which he at once 
christened '' L'isle des Monts Deserts." 

Its rugged scenery has been served rare, medium 
rare, well-done, and over-done, yet all who have 
essayed to write of its singularly elusive marvels of 
Nature-wrought beauty have scarce compassed the 
periphery of a single patch of lichen on the boll of one 
of its rugged trees, or spanned the length of a single 
scar along the face of one of its beetling cliffs. It is 
impossible to describe the indescribable, and that 
is what Nature has here hung out to dry above the 
environing waters. From the writer it is words, 
words; and from the artist, it is just paint, — oil for 



THE LAM) OF ST. CASTIN 319 

a vehicle, antl garish coh:)r for body, — brushed over 
the immaculate canvas with varying technique. 

Of the islands of the ancient Maine coast two, cer- 
tainly, arc indubitably linked with the earliest period 
of exploration and discovery, — L'isle des Monts 
Deserts and Monhegan. The clustering Isles of Shoals 
partly in Maine and partly in New Hampshire, share 
as a third grouj) in the distinction accorded the two 
former. If the first is identified with Champlain, the 
second falls to the lot of Weymouth, who was here 
in the spring of 1605, before De Monts and Champlain 
had set out on their voyage of the same year to Cape 
Cod. Both islands are exceedingly beautiful and pic- 
turescjue, and Ijoth have their outposts to the east: 
the former in a huge rock-heap that, 

'"abrupt aiul bare, 
Lifts its gray turrets in the air, — 
Seen from afar, like some stroiigliokl 
Built by the ocean kings of old," 

and known as Desert Rock: and tlie latter, in the 
black ledge of Manana — -from eacii of which, after 
the night has set in, flame the fires that count the 
hours from sun to sun. 

Mont Desert's worn and storm-splintered crags, its 
towering steeps of scarred and sun-burnished granite, 
— bald, ragged, painted in divers colors by the chemis- 
try of Nature, — are much the same as when Cham- 
l)lain sailetl under their shadows, and of which he 
writes: "The land is very high antl intersected by 
passes, appearing from the sea like seven or eight 



320 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



mountaiii3 ranged near to each other. The summits 
of the greater part of these are bare of trees because 




they are nothing but rocks." These mountains are 
isolate, as are those of Camden, forming a part of 
no particular system, keeping company with those 
other estrays of Katahdin and Blue Hill. M. I'Abbe 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 321 

Marault says Pemati(i means "that whicli is at the 
head," which is pertinently applicable to the eastern 
end of L'isle dea Monts Deserts, which is lofty and 
startlingly bold in its rigidity of contour. 

Champlain says further: "The next morning, 6th of 
September, we made two leagues and perceived a 
smoke in a creek which was at the foot of the moun- 
tains and saw two canoes propelled by savages who 
came within musket-shot to ivconnoiter us." These 
were the savages who returned the following day, to 
whom they made sonu^ jjresents in exchange for fish 
and game, and with whom they afterward went up 
the Penobscot. 

It was the following year that Weymouth came. 
He was followed two years later l)y the Pojiham Col- 
ony, of which Strachey, in his "Historic of Travaile 
into Virginia, ''writes as to the first landing of that col- 
ony on this coast: "They were thwart of the caj)e or 
headland, w^hich stands in 43 degrees, the ship)) being 
in 42 degrees and 50 minutes betwixt the place they 
were now at anil the said caj)e or headland, yt is all 
full of islands and seep s()und(>s for any ship))ing to 
goe in by them." This is the latitude of Mont Desert, 
and l)y some it is suj)p()sed that it was on this island 
that the Poj)ham Colony made their first landing; but 
Monhegan is the more generally accepted location. 
It was probably left for La Saussaye to next make 
the acquaintance of the island after Champlain left it. 

From the Nature jioint of view the island is beauti- 
fully situatetl, for Frenchman's Hay laves its shores 
on the east, and Blue Hill Hav on the west. On the 



322 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

land side are the Narrows, spanned by the long pile 
bridge which ties it to the mainland, while to sea- 
ward, off Schooner Head, is the wide ocean whence 
the storms roll in on the mountainous waters. It is 
large in area, with its length of fourteen miles by 
twelve in width crowded full 

" of hills and dells 
All rumpled and uneven 
With green recesses, sudden swells, 
And odorous valleys," 

shags of woods, lakes, and domes of rock — -mountain- 
high. After the raid of Argall it was named by the 
English Mount Mansell, after Sir Robert Mansell, 
a noted vice-admiral of the times of Charles I. and 
James I.; but the English cognomen is now merely a 
historical association, for Champlain's christening is 
likely to cling to it for all time. Leaving Champlain, 
one has to come down to the times of Poutrincourt, 
who established himself at Port Royal after the re- 
turn of De Monts to France, by which several new 
characters are abruptly introduced into the history 
of the island, and who in fact lend to it its importance 
in the early annals. 

There is a tale connected with Frenchman's Bay 
which had to do with its name, and of which the 
reader has had Champlain's version in an earlier 
chapter; but that about to be quoted is the story of 
Lescarbot's. The incident happened about La grand 
baye Francoise, well up the Acadian coast on the east 
sliore of Fundv, and at a considerable distance from 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 



323 



Frenchman's Bay, yet which, through SulUvan, or 
some earher annalist, has attached itself to this sheet 
of water under the nose of Mont Desert. 

Erondelle translates Lescarbot: ''Hauing soiorned 
there some 12 or 13 dales, a strange accident hapned, 
such as I will tell you. There was a certain (Roman) 
Churchman of a good familiein Paris, that had a desire 




^\ 



"'• r" 



NEWPORT MOUNTAIN 



to i^crforme the voyage witii Monsieur De Monts, and 
that against the liking of his friends, who sent ex- 
pressly to Honjhur to diuert him thereof, and to bring 
him backe t(j Paris. The Ships lying at anker in the 
said Baye of Saint Marie, he put himself in company 
with some that went to sport thcmselues in the woods. 
It came to pass that hauing staid to drinke at a brooke, 
hee forgat there his sword and followed on his way 
with his companie: which, when hee percciued he re- 



324 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

turned backe to seeke it; but hauing found it, forget- 
ful from what part hee came, and not considering 
whether hee should go East or West, or otherwise 
(for there was no path) hee tooke his way quite con- 
trarie, turning his backe from his companie, and so 
long trauelled that he found himselfe on the sea 
shoare, where no ships were to be seen (for they 
were at the other side of a nooke of land farre reach- 
ing into the sea), he imagined he was forsaken, and 
began to bewaile his fortune vpon a rocke. The night 
being come, euery one being retired, he is found 
wanting; hee was asked for of those who had beene 
in the woods, they report in what maner he departed 
from them, and that since they had no newes of him. 
Wliereupon a Protestant was charged to haue killed 
him because they quarrelled some times for mat- 
ters of Religion. Finally they sounded a trumpet 
throu the forest, they shot off the Canon diuers times, 
but in vaine; for the roaring of the Sea, stronger than 
all that, did expell backe the sound of the said Canons 
and trumpets. Two, three and foure dais passe, he 
appeareth not. In the meane while the time hastens 
to depart, so hauing tarried so long that he was then 
held for dead, they weighed ankers to go further, and 
to see the depths of a bay that hath some 40 leagues 
length and 14 (yea 18) of bredth, which was named 
La Baye Francoise, or the French Baye." 

The ships went back to the Island of the Holy 
Cross on the St. Croix River, where the settlement of 
De Monts was then building, and Aubrey was left to 
the mercies of the savages, the wolves, and with such 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTJN 325 

sustenance as he could i)luck from tlie berry bushes 
which were in fruitage at tliat time. As soon as they 
had returned, a small bark was despatched "backe 
to the bay of Saint Mary with a mine finder that had 
been carried thither for to get some mines of siluer 
and Iron. . . . They entred into the said Baie of 
Saint Marie , by a narrow strait or passage, which is 
between the land of Port Royal and an Island called 
the Long Isle; where after some abode th(> said Aubri 
(the lost man) perceaved them and began with a fee- 
ble voice to call as loud as he could; and for to help 
his voice he advised himself to doe as Ariadne did 
heretofore to Theseus, 

' Candidaque iposui lonyae ve'amina Virgae 
Scilicet oblitos admonitur a mei.' 

For he j)ut his handkerchcr and his hat on a staues 
end, which made him better to be knowen. For as 
one of them heard the voice, and asked the rest of the 
companie, if it might be the said Monsieur Auhri 
they mocked and laughed at it. But after they had 
spied the mouing of the handercher and of the hat, 
then they began to think that it might be hee. And 
coming neere, they knew jjerfectly it was himselfe, 
and tooke him in their Barke with great joy and con- 
tentment the sixteenth day after he had lost him- 
selfe." 

Williamson falls into the same error with Sullivan, 
and probably quotes him. Sullivan says also "that 
there were, anciently, many French settlements on 
that part of the bay, which is opposite to the banks 



326 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



of Mount Desert, as well as on the island itself," a 
statement which is not borne out by the facts; the 
Mission of St. Saveur was the only settlement of which 
there is any record. 




GREEN MOUNTAIN 



In 1689 the Island of Monts Deserts and other isles 
in front, and a part of the mainland, were granted to 
Sieur Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, l^ut he never set- 
tled here. There was a small French settlement at 
Passamaquoddy. Church came here in 1704, but 
mentions no settlement. Cadillac was a Gascon, " the 
Captain of a detachment of Marines, a man of very 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTIN 327 

distinf^uished merit." In 1694 he was in command at 
Michilimakinac. In 1701 he estabhshed the French 
post, Fort Ponchartrain, at Detroit. The following 
year he was in Quebec. He was Governor of Louisi- 
ana in 1712, and in company with De Crozet he was 
trathng and mining for silver. He went to France in 
1717, and though well acquainted with the coast of 
New England, he has left only a description of the 
island, rather than the ruins of a settlement. 

He says: '' From Majais (Machias) to Monts Deserts 
it is twenty leagues. This is an island which is twelve 
leagues in circumference and very high and moun- 
tainous. It serves as an excellent landmark for 
shipe from Europe, bound either for Port Royal or 
Boston." 

He mentions Doiiaquet in connection with Monts 
Deserts, and, by the way, Cadillac was lord of Doiia- 
quet and Monts Deserts, and by a patent from the 
French king. This Doiiaquet was Frenchman's Bay, 
and he mentions it as an island ''on the northeast 
side of a river of the same name, which is very beauti- 
ful and very wide. There is a rock in the middle of 
the entrance which is not covered at high tide. As 
you go in, you perceive first two small and very steep 
islands. The entrance is safe everywhere. Within, 
there is a basin which is four leagues in circum- 
ference, and where there is gootl anchorage. . . . 

" The harbor of Monts Deserts, or Monts Coupes, is 
very good and beautiful. There is no .sea inside, and 
vessels lie, as it were, in a box. There are four en- 
trances. . . . Good masts may be got here, and the 



328 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

English formi'i'Iy used to come here for them." It will 
be noted that Cadillac's account is purely from a 
utilitarian point of view. He mentions no settlements 
of the past or present. He refers to Paincuit (Pema- 
quid) as being the place where a " fort was taken in 
16S8 by the Indians. They put eighty men to death, 
but gave quarter to the Governor and six of the peo- 
ple^ at the request of one of the chiefs, called Matek- 
nando, whose son is now in France." St. Castin did 
not go to France until about 1701, so Cadillac must 
have been here after that ; and he found Mont Desert 
as lonely as a desert isle without habitant or habita- 
tion, unless there may have been some nomad sav- 
ages here on a fishing-tri]), as was not infrequent. 
The savages inland went to the seashore periodically 
for fishing, and to enjoy a clambake, as the consider- 
able shell-mounds here and there by some river-mouth, 
or on some easily accessible peninsula, would sug- 
g(>st. Much speculation has been aroused as to the 
origin of the shell-heaps along the coast, and it kuxds 
one to remark in passing that, as a speculation in 
sweetening for an acidulous soil, it is likely to be emi- 
nently safe and profitable, and as a field for the culti- 
vation of the seductive flowers of romance it is not 
less fertile; for here were held the Feasts of the Gor- 
mandizers, and that these accumulations of shells are 
the results of human agency is not to be doubted. 
They are local in their deposits, being found between 
the Sagadahoc and Penobscot streams, and most in 
the neighborhood of the Damariscove waters. Who 
knows Init the savage may have dried his clams, as 



THE LAX I) OF ST. CAST IN 329 

he did his lobstci*s, for winter use. It is not impos- 
sible. 

It was a virg;in stage-setting in which our actors 
found themselves, witiiout scene-shifter or i)rom])ter: 
and they ])layed their leanly endowed parts with all 
the shades of feeling common to the actualities and 
activities of human affairs, spurred on by the selfish- 
ness common to humankind, that had for its main 
objects the extension of th(^ French influence and its 
accom|)anying territorial aggrandizement, the inci'e- 
ment of gain by trade in fish and furs with the abo- 
rigine, and the spreading of the Jesuit propaganda. 
These were the bases of the Guercheville colonizing 
expedition, and it was by a mere chance that La 
Saussaye made his anchorage in Somes' Sound. 

That the settlement of De Monts up the river of 
the St. Croix was the first settlement on the coast 
after the Northmen, and |)ossibly the Dutch at I'em- 
aquid, who have been supposed to have been the build- 
ers of its paved streets, its ancient canal, and mill-dam, 
to be followed by that of Port Royal, is certain. It 
was a motley company, this first colony of papist and 
Huguenot i)riests, laborers, artisans, and soldiers, but 
the colonies of those days differed in their niake-U|) 
only in degree, not in kind. These were followed by 
the English expeditions of Raleigh, 1600, to the Car- 
olina coast, and those of De la Warr to A'irginia, and 
Poi)ham to the Sagadahoc in the year 1607; the first 
was actually and the last ajiparently, though not 
certainly, an abortive effort.. 

De Monts left the St. Croix for France in the sum- 



330 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

mer of 1605, and did not return. Not only was he 
discouraged by the terrors of the winter, but he had 
begun to be hampered by the jealousies and machi- 
nations of the envious. His high and exclusive priv- 
ileges, confirmed to him by his patent from Henry IV., 
were the source of his trouble. M. de Poutrincourt, 
who came over wdth him, charmed by the beauty of 
the country about Port Royal, wished to found a 
colony there, and De Monts gave him that immedi- 
ate territory. The remainder of his grant he conveyed 
to the Marchioness de Guercheville. 

Loyola had, on his return from his pilgrimage to 
the Holy Land, in 1534, established the Order of the 
Company of Jesus, whose followers were nicknamed 
Jesuits by Calvin. The former had soon gathered to 
himself a zealous and considerable constituency. All 
the peoples of the earth were to be brought under its 
influence, and missions were to be everywhere planted 
where people could be found to be baptized, and there 
was sufficient water with which to perform the sol- 
emn and holy service. Their attention was early 
turned to the North American Lidian, and then be- 
gan the sacrifice of life and money to bring them into 
the fold of the Church of Rome. 

Henry had confirmed De Monts' cession of Port 
Royal to De Poutrincourt, and, being in France, the 
latter was making extensive preparations for the suc- 
cess of his colony. The royal order was issued to him 
to provide suitable accommodations for a Jesuit mis- 
sion within his domain. The Jesuits had been expelled 
from France in 1594, but by the subtle influences of 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



331 



Church politics had been readmitted in 1604; but 
De Poutrincourt had little use for these monks. The 
instigator of this annoyance to De Poutrincourt was 
Father Pierre Biart, who, learning of this colonial 
project, at once saw an opening for his order to obtain 






"^ 




iST i,*f' 







PORCUPINE 



somewhat of a foothold among the savages of the 
country. This was in 1607, and so odious was the 
scheme to De Poutrincourt that he delayed the sail- 
ing of his expedition until 1610, when he managed to 
get away without taking the uncomfortable Jesuits 
along with him. He later determined to leave the 
conduct of his colony to his son, Biencourt, then about 
nineteen years of age. 



332 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

He sent him to France for supplies, only to find the 
Huguenot merchants detaining the ship for advances 
made on account of the colony. The priests, Biart 
and Enemond Masse, who had become anxious in 
their waiting, were much delighted with the idea that 
Biencourt had made arrangement for their conduct 
to the colony, but only to have their vision again 
clouded with disappointment, when the Huguenots 
declined peremptorily to allow the Jesuits to go in 
the ship. Henry had met Ravillac in the Rue de la 
Ferronerie and had felt the knife of the assassin in his 
heart. Marie de Medicis held the royal reins. She 
at once issued an order to the Governor of Dieppe to 
compel the Huguenots to allow the priests to take 
passage with Biencourt, but the mandate was un- 
availing. The Huguenots were firm; and it was only 
upon the payment to them of their claims by Antoi- 
nette de Pons, the wife of the Governor of Paris, and 
Marchioness de Guercheville, that the obstacle was 
removed from the pathway of the Jesuits. The Mar- 
chioness was a woman of deeply religious character 
and of wide influence, by which she was enabled to 
procure the needed funds from the lords of court, — 
and so the ship was sent on her voyage, reaching Port 
Royal in June of 1611. Poutrincourt, incensed at the 
coming of the Jesuits, left Port Royal the following 
month for France, where he spent the remainder of 
his days. 

With their accustomed disjxjsition to dominate in 
affairs temporal as in spiritual, they began at once to 
attempt the direction of the affairs of the colony; but 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIX 333 

Biencourt, somewhat like his father, having little 
reverence for them and less affection, independent 
and high-spirited, young and self-reliant, resented 
their priestly intermeddling. The priests were in- 
clined to handle the funds, but Biencourt was per- 
emptory, and they were thrown upon their own re- 
sources. The Jesuits then left the colony and began 
their work among the savages, learning their language, 
and ministering to them as opportunity afforded. 
This separation of the priests was the cause of much 
ill-feeling, and brought about disaster to the Port 
Royal settlement later, in which Biart was an active 
factor. The story of these dissensions flew across the 
seas at the instance of a lay-brother, one Gilbert du 
Thet, who, returning to France, made a jiersonal com- 
plaint to the Marchioness, who resolved at once to 
erect a mission elsewhere, and distant enough from 
Biencourt so there should be no chance for friction. 

The more she entertained her 'project, the higher 
swept the wave of her enthusiasm; but like all enthu- 
siasts, she found her sailing rough and discouraging: 
but, succeeding in attaching the (^ueen Regent to her 
interest, and after that the aid of otiiers of the Court, 
she chartered a ship of a hundred tons burden, which 
she began to fit out with all manner of supplies called 
for l)y the enterprise. Then began the enlisting of the 
Argonauts, — the priests, the laborers, and artisans 
who were to form the colony. These obtained, she 
gave all in charge of Sieur la Saussaye, who was to be 
the Governor of the new colony. Flying their sails to 
the winds on the twelfth day of March, 1613, they 



334 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

left the Bay of Honfleur with forty-eight in the com- 
pany, with Charles Flory de Hableville master of the 
ship. It was an uneventful voyage that brought them 
into the harbor of Port Royal on the twenty-second 
day of June of that year, and here Fathers Biart and 
Masse met the Jesuits, Jaccjues Quentin, the priest, 
and Du Thet, the lay-brother, wlio had come along in 
the ship. 

Were it not for Biart's" Relations des Jesuits,'' which 
has been the well from which the latter historians have 
derived their inspirations, only a vivid imagination 
would have remained as the resource of the relator of 
the incidents that made up the ill-starred adventure 
of La Saussaye. But one likes to glean in the old fur- 
row, and so the reader may pick up the thread of the 
tale in the language of Biart; or, in other words, he 
may place his hob-nails in the footi)rints of the in- 
defatigable Jesuit, or touch elbows, as he prefers. 

The Jesuit details with photographic minuteness 
the incidents that gave their sad and tragic color to 
the picture. He relates: 

"We were detained five days at Port Royal by 
adverse winds, when a favorable north-easter having 
arisen, we set out with the intention of sailing up 
the Pentagoet River, to a place called Kadesciuit, (the 
present Bangor,) which had been allotted for our new 
residence, and which possessed great advantages for 
this purpose. But God willed it otherwise, for when 
we had reached the south-eastern coast of the Island 
of Menan, the weather changed, and the sea w^as cov- 
ered with a fog so dense that we could not distinguish 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTJN 



335 



(lay from night. We were greatly alarmed, for this 
place is full of breakers and rocks, uj)on which, in the 
darkness, we feared our vessel might drift. The wind 
not permitting us to put out to sea, we remained in 
this position two days and two nights, veering some- 
times to one side, sometimes to another, as God in- 




%^ 



MOUTH OF SOMES SOUND 



Spired us. Our trihulatinn led us to jjray to (Jod to 
deliver us from danger, antl send us to some i)lace 
where we might contribute to His glory. He heard us 
in His mercy, for on the same evening we began to 
discover the stars, and in the morning the fog had 
cleared away. We then discovered that we were near 
the coast of Mount Desert, an island the savages call 
Pematic. The |)ilot steered toward the eastern shore, 
and landed us in a large and beautiful harbor. We 
returned thanks to God, elevating the Cross, and 



336 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

singing praises with the holy Sacrifice of Mass. We 
named the place and harbor St. Savior. [Possil^ly 
Northeast Harbor.] 

''Now in this ]3ort of St. Savior a violent ciuarrel 
arose between our sailors and crew and the other {pas- 
sengers. The cause of it was that the charter granted, 
and the agreement made in France, was to the effect 
that the said sailors should be bound to put into any 
port in Acadia that we should designate, and should 
remain there three months. The sailors maintained 
that they had arrived in a port in Acadia, and that 
the said term of three months ought to date from this 
arrival. To this it was answered that this i)ort was 
not the one designated, which w^as Kadescjuit, and 
therefore that the time they were in St. Savior was 
not to be taken into account. The pilot held obsti- 
nately to a contrary opinion, maintaining that no 
vessel had ever landed at Kadesquit, and that he did 
not wish to become a discoverer of new routes. There 
was much argument for and against these views, 
discussions were being carried on incessantly, a bad 
omen for the future. 

"While this ciuestion was pending, the Savages 
made a fire in order that we might see the smoke. 
This signal meant that they had observed us, and 
wished to know if we needed them, which we did. 
The pilot took the opportunity to tell them that the 
Fathers from Port Royal were in his ship. The Sav- 
ages replied that they would be very glad to see one 
whom they had known at Pentagoet two years before. 
This was Father Biard, who went immediately to see 



THE LAXD OF ST. CAST IN 337 

them, aiul iiuiuirotl the route to Kadesquit, informing 
them that he intended to reside there. 

'''But/ said they, 'if you desire to remain there, 
why do you not remain instead with us, who have as 
good a i)hice as Kadescjuit is?' 

" Tlien they began to praise their settlement, as- 
suring him that it was so healthy and so pleasant, that 
wlien the natives are sick anywhere else, they were 
l)rought there and cured. These eulogies did not 
greatly impress Father Biard, because he knew suffi- 
ciently well that the Savages, like other people, over- 
I'ated, sometimes^ their own possessions. Neverthe- 
less, they understood how to induce him to remain, 
for they said, — 

" ' You must come, for our sagamore Asticou is 
dangerously ill, and if you do not come, he will die 
without baptism, and will not go to heaven, and you 
will be the cause of it, for he wishes to be baj)tized.' 

■'The reason so naturally given, made Father Biard 
hesitate, and they finally persuaded him to go, since 
he had but three leagues to travel, and there would 
be no greater loss of time than a single afternoon. 

" We embarked in their canoe with Sieur dc laMotte 
and Simon the Interpreter, and we set out. When we 
arrived at Ast icon's wigwam, we found him ill, but 
not dangerously so, for he was only suffering from 
rheumatism; and finding this, we decided to pay a 
visit to the j)lace which the Indians had boasted was 
so much better than Kadesquit or the residence of 
Frenchmen. We found that the Savages had in reality 
reasonable grounds for their eulogies. We felt wry 



338 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



well satisfied with it ourselves, and having brought 
these tidings to the remainder of the crew, it was 
unanimously agreed that we should remain there, 
and not seek further, seeing that God himself seemed 
to intend it, by a train of happy accidents that had 




ST. SAVEUR 



occurred and by the miraculous cure of the child, 
which I shall relate elsewhere. 

"This place is a beautiful hill, sloping gently from 
the seashore, and supplied with water by a spring on 
each side. The ground comprises from twenty-five to 
thirty acres, covered with grass, which in some places 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 339 

reaches the height of a man. It fronts the south and 
east, towards Pentagoet Bay, into which are dis- 
cliargcd the waters of several pretty streams, abound- 
ing in fish. The soil is rich and fertile. The port and 
harbor are the finest possible, in a i)osition com- 
manding the entire coast; the harbor especially is 
smooth as a pond, being shut in by the large island 
of Mount Desert, Ix'sides being surrounded by certain 
small islands which break the force of the winds and 
waves, and fortify the entrance. It is large enough to 
hold any fleet, and is navigable for the largest ships 
up to a cable's length from the shore. It is in latitude 
forty-four and one-half degrees north, a j^osition 
more northerly than that of Bordeaux." 

This location is placetl by Dr. De Costa as on the 
western side of Somes' Sound, and the spring is still 
pointed out from which the French Colony quenched 
its thirst, and is still known as Biard's Spring. The 
personality thus lent to this bubbling fountain is of 
the most delightful and romantic inspiration. The 
other spring is here as well. When the tide is in it 
overflows the Biard sj)ring. but as it ebbs the water 
is sweetly fresh and j)ure. and is intensely cold. The 
fishing-vessels have used it from a time to which the 
memory of man goeth not back. 

Father Biard continues: "When we had landed 
in this place, and planted the Cross, we began to work, 
and with the work began our disputes, the omen and 
origin of our misfortunes. The cause of these disjjutes 
was that our Caj^tain, La Saussaye, wished to attend 
to agricultur(<. and our other leaders besought him 



340 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

not to occupy the workmen in that manner, and so 
delay the erection of dwellings and fortifications. He 
would not comply with their request, and from these 
disputes arose others, which lasted until the English 
obliged us to make peace in the manner I am about to 
relate. 

" The English colonists in Virginia are in the habit 
of coming every year to the islands of Pencoit, (Pem- 
aquid,) twenty-five leagues from St. Savior, in order 
to provide food (fish) for the winter. While on their 
way, as usual, in the summer of the year 1613, they 
were overtaken at sea by fogs and mists, which in 
this region often overspread both land and sea, in 
summer. These lasted some days, during which the 
tide drifted them gradually farther than they in- 
tended. They were about eighty leagues farther in 
New France than they supposed, but they did not rec- 
ognize the place." 

Digressing for a moment, it may be averred with 
some certainty that this is the only reference to the 
Treasurer (carrying fourteen guns and a complement 
of sixty fighting-men) as a fighting-vessel to be found 
in the annals of history. The legalized pirate Samuel 
Argal was the leader of these freebooters, for such 
they were, with England and France at peace each 
with the other. He was as much a sea rover as was 
Captain Kidd. He had a commission based on the 
shadowy claim of the Virginia proprietors to the lands 
of the Acadia country, and he had about as much hu- 
manity as had Kidd, if one is to judge by what fol- 
lows in the Biard relation. 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 341 

The Jesuit says: "Some Savages observed their 
vessel and went to meet them, supposing them to be 
Frenchmen in search of them. The English under- 
stood nothing of what the Savages said, but conjec- 
tured from their signs that there was a vessel near, 
and that this vessel was French. They understood 
the word 'Xormans,' which the Savages called us, and 
the polite gestures of the natives, they recognized 
the French ceremonies of courtesy. Then the Eng- 
Hsh, who were in need of provisions, and of every- 
thing else, ragged, half-naked, and in search of plun- 
der, infjuired carefully how large our vessel was, how 
many canoes we had, how many men, etc., and having 
received a satisfactory answer, uttered cries of joy, 
demonstrating they had found what they wanted, 
and that they intended to attack us. The Savages 
did not interpret it so, however, for they supposed 
the English to be our friends, who desired so earnestly 
to see us. Accordingly, one of them guided the Eng- 
lish to our vessel. As soon as the English saw us they 
began to prepare for combat, and their guide saw 
that he had made a mistake, and began to weep and 
curse those who had deceived him. Many times 
afterwards he wept and implored pardon for his error 
of us, and of the other Savages, because they wished 
to avenge our misfortunes on him, believing he had 
acted through malice. 

"On seeing this vessel approach us, we knew not 
whether we were to see friends or enemies. French- 
men or foreigners. The pilot therefore went forward 
in a sloop to reconnoitre, while the rest were arming 



342 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

themselves. La Saussaye remained ashore, and with 
him the greater number of the men. Lieutenant La 
Motte, Ensign Ronfere, Sergeant Joubert, and the 
rest went on board the ship. 

"The Enghsh vessel moved quickly as an arrow, 
having the wind astern. It was hung with red flags, 
the arms of England floated over it, and three trum- 
pets and two drums were ready to sound. Our pilot 
who had gone forward to reconnoitre, did not return 
to the ship, fearing, as he said, to fall into their hands, 
to avoid which he rowed himself around an island. 
Thus the ship did not contain one-half its crew, and 
was defended only by ten men, of whom but one. 
Captain Flory, had any experience in naval contests. 
Although not wanting in prudence or courage, the 
Captain had not time to prepare for a conflict, nor 
had his crew ; there was not even time to weigh anchor, 
so as to disengage the ship, which is the first step in 
sea-fights. It would, however, have been of little use 
to weigh the anchor, since the sails were fastened; 
for being summer, they had arranged them as an 
awning to shade the decks. This mishap, however, 
had a good result, for our men being sheltered during 
the combat, and the English unable to take aim at 
them, fewer of them were killed or wounded. 

"As soon as they approached, our sailors hailed 
them, but the English replied only by cries of menace, 
and by discharges of musketry and cannon. They 
had fourteen pieces of artillery, and sixty artillery- 
men, who ranged themselves along the side of their 
vessel, firing rapidly, without taking aim. The first 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTIX 



343 



discharge was terrible; the whole ship was shrouded 
in fire and smoke. On our side the guns remained 
silent. Captain Flory cried out, 'Put the cannon in 
position,' but the gunner was absent. Father Gilbert 
du Thet, who had never been guilty of cowardice in 
his life, hearing the Captain's order, and seeing that 







SOMES SOUND 



no one obeyed, took the match and fired the cannon as 
loudly as the enemy's. The misfortune wa.s that he 
did not aim carefully; had he done so, probably some- 
thing more useful than noise would have occurred. 

"The English, after their first attack, |)rei)are(l to 
board our vessel. Cajitain Flory cut the cable, and 
thus arrested for a time the j)rogress of the enemy. 
They then prepared to Hre another volley, and in 



344 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

this, Du Thet was wounded by a musket and fell 
across the helm. Captain Flory and three other men 
were also wounded, and they cried out that they 
surrendered. The English, on hearing this cry, went 
into their boat to board our vessel, our men impru- 
dently rushed into theirs in order to put off to shore 
before the arrival of the victors. The conquerors 
cried out to them to return, as otherwise they would 
fire on them, and two of our men, in their terror, 
threw themselves into the water and were drowned, 
either because they were wounded or, more probably, 
were shot while in the water. They were both prom- 
ising young men, one named Le Moine, from Dieppe, 
and the other named Neveu, from Beauvais. Their 
bocUes were found nine days afterwards, and care- 
fully interred. Such was the history of the capture 
of our vessel. 

" The victorious Englishmen made a landing in the 
place where we had begun to erect our tents and 
dwellings, and searched our Captain to find his com- 
mission, saying that the land was theirs, but that if 
we would show that we had acted in good faith, and 
under the authority of our Prince, they would not 
drive us away, since they did not wish to imperil the 
amicable relations between our two Sovereigns. The 
trouble was they did not find La Saussaye, but they 
seized his desk, searched it carefully, and having 
found our commissions and royal letters, seized them, 
then putting everything in its place, they closed and 
locked the desk. On the next day, when he saw La 
Saussaye, the English Captain welcomed him politely. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 345 

and then asked to see his commission. La Saussaye 
replied that his papers were in his desk, which was 
accordingly brought to him, and he found it was 
locked and in perfect order, but that the papers were 
missing. The English Captain immediately changeti 
his tone and manner, saying, — ' Then, sir, you are 
imposing on us. You give us to understand that you 
hold a commission from your King, and yet you can 
produce no evidence of it. You are all rogues and 
pirates and deserve death." He then granted j^ermis- 
sion to his soldiers to plunder us, in which work they 
spent the entire afternoon. We witnessed the de- 
struction of our property from the shore, the English- 
men fastened our vessels to theirs, for we had two, 
our ship and a boat newly constructed and equipped. 
We were thus reduced to a miserable condition, and 
this was not all. 

" Next day they landed and robbed us of all we still 
possessed, destroying our clothing and other things. 
At one time they committed some personal violence 
on two of our people, which so enraged them that 
they fled to the woods, like poor crazed creatures, 
half-naketl, not knowing what was to become of them. 

"To return to the Jesuits: I have told you that 
Father du Thct was wounded by a musket-shot dur- 
ing the hght. The l-^nglish, on entering our ship, 
placed him under the care of their surgeon, along 
with the other wounded men. This surgeon was a 
Catholic, and a very charitable man, and he treated 
us with great kindness. Father Biard, knowing that 
Father du Thet was wounded, asked the Captain to 



346 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



allow him to be carried ashore, so that he had an op- 
portunity to receive the last Sacraments, and to 
praise the just and merciful God in company with 
his brethren. He died with much resignation, calm- 
ness, and devotion twenty-four hours after he was 
wounded. Thus his prayers were granted, for on our 











ECHO LAKE 



departure from Honfleur, he had raised his hands and 
eyes toward heaven, praying that he might no more 
return to France, but that he might die laboring for 
the salvation of souls, and especially of the Savages. 
He was buried the same day at the foot of a large 
cross which we had erected on our arrival. 

''It was not till then that the English recognized 
the Jesuits to be priests. Father Biard and Father 
Ennemond Masse went to the ship to speak to the Eng- 
lish Captain, and explained that they were Jesuits, who 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 347 

had travelled into these regions to convert the Sav- 
ages. Then they implored liini, by the blood of Him 
whom they both acknowledged as their Redeemer, 
and by the mercy they hoped for, that he would have 
pity on the poor Frenchmen, whom CJod had placed 
in his power, that he would liberate them and permit 
them to return to France. The Captain heard them 
quietly, and answered them resix'ctfully. 'But,' said 
he, 'I wonder that you Jesuits, who are generally 
supposed to be conscientious and religious men, 
should be here in company with robbers and pirates, 
without law or religion/ 

" Father Biard rei)lied to him, proving that all the 
crew were good men, and approved by his most Chris- 
tian Majesty, and refuted so positively the objections 
of the English Caj)tain, that the latter was obliged to 
pretend to be convinced. 

"'Certainly,' said he, 'it was very wrong to lose 
your letters patent. However, I shall talk with your 
captain about sending you home.' 

"And from that time he made the two fathers 
share his table, showing them much kindness and re- 
spect. But one thing annoyed him greatly, the es- 
cape of the pilot and sailors, of whom he could hear 
nothing. The pilot was a native of Rouen, named 
Le Bailleur; he had gone away to reconnoitre, as I 
have already mentioned, and being unable to return 
to the ship in time, he stayed apart in his sloop, and 
when night fell, took with him the other sailors, and 
placed himself in security from the j)Ower of the Eng- 
lish. At night he came to advise with us as to what 



348 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

he had better do. He did this to obhge the Jesuits, 
for he came to Father Biard, and taking his hand, 
begged him not to distrust him, assuring him that he 
would be faithful to him and the other Fathers. As 
he seemed to speak sincerely, Father Biard thanked 
him affectionately, and promised to remember his 
kindness. The Father also said that he would not 
think of himself until the others had set out, that 
then he would seek counsel of God; and he warned 
the pilot not to fall into the hands of the English, be- 
cause the Captain was very anxious to catch him. 

"The pilot profited by the warning, for in two or 
three days after, he retired behind some of the islands, 
to be in shelter, and to watch for what might happen. 
The English Captain then resolved not to inflict any 
farther injury on us, although he might have desired 
to do so, as I conjectured by his previous conduct. 
He was a very able and artful man, but nevertheless 
a gentleman and a man of courage. His crew were 
neither cruel or unkind to any of us." 

What the Jesuit wishes one to understand from the 
last sentences is somewhat obscure. It is evident 
that in his heart Biard was pleased at the outcome 
of the venture, secure in the respect likely to be paid 
to " the cloth," else he could not have called the filcher 
of La Saussaye's commissions something to be con- 
ceived only by a wit of the most vicious quality, or 
have so readily forgiven the murder of Du Thet, the 
despoiling of their dwellings, and pirating of their 
ships, and the casting off of his Governor, La Saus- 
saye, and Father Masse, along with thirteen others 



THE LAXD OF ST. CASTIN 



349 



in an open boat, to get on as best they could with the 
merciless sea and the inliospitable land. 

Argal and Biart seemed to be kindred spirits, and 
got on very well together, the latter making the voy- 
age to ^'irginia apparently without protest, and prob- 
ably with much pleasure; while the pilot who had 
eluded Argal found the Governor's party, and. hugging 




SADDLEBACK LEDGE 



the shores for safety, by a strenuous use of their oars 
they made the coast of Nova Scotia, where they were 
able to get a passage to St. Malo in some trading-ves- 
sels that hapjiened to be on the southern .shore, which 
they conceived to hv a great stroke of good fortune, 
wrested from a most untoward and unpropitious 
environment. Argal had tlone them a very good turn 
unwittingly. 

The other thirteen along with I^iart went to see 
Sir Thomas Dale, the Governor of ^'irginia, and it 
was likely to have been a disagreeable visit, for the 
Governor was in bad humor antl told them he was 
going to hang them up at once, which he would have 



350 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

done, but Argal's conscience, or what there was left 
of it, was startled into speech, and he told the Gov- 
ernor that these poor French colonists were innocent ; 
that La Saussaye had the proper commission from 
the French Crown, but that he filched it from the 
Governor's private desk, the which he was obliged to 
do, to enable him to put a good face on his enterprise, 
which was none other than the baldest of piracies. 
And this was the man whom Biart credited with be- 
ing a gentleman, eating at his table, enjoying his com- 
panionship, and perhaps planning already the de- 
struction of Biencourt's little colony at Port Royal. 
It is for the reason that Biart's character may be 
better understood that his "Relation" is given in 
extenso, for he has been held up in various lights by 
various literati in historic matters. His motives are 
clear, a great deal clearer than the waters that float 
them; for he betrays himself, unwittingly, as a man 
of elastic conscience; not lacking in guile; truckling; 
the instigator, undoubtedly, of the casting off of his 
brother priest in the open boat ; withal, a man of deep 
and abiding animosities, — in fact, he was a typical 
Jesuit who made religious duty wholly subservient 
to policy. 

Dale listened to the story of Argal, and with an 
itching for further adventuring of the same sort he 
forgave the pirate and put him in such good counte- 
nance that he at once fitted out his own ship, the French 
vessel, and a smaller craft for the invasion of the Bay 
of Fundy. His purpose was the destruction of Port 
Royal, and he had soon set out on this enterprise; 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



351 



and Father l^iart k('])t liim conijxmy, A\iio is credited 
by both English and French annahsts, if one accepts 
Purchas, with an "indigestible malice" against Bien- 








BASS HARBOR HEAD 



court. Whatever his puipose, he was an aj)parently 
willing consort of the piratical Argal, and had little 
loyalty to his countrymen. lie writes himself down 
as a traitor, whom the Engli.sh would willingly have 
hanged; while, at Port Royal, he was little better 



352 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

thought of, as one of Biencourt's men told him to 
" Begone, or I will split your head with this hatchet!" 
De Costa thought his character needed looking into, 
with Biart looking on complacently at the destruction 
of the Port Royal Colony and Biencourt's ruin. 

Leaving Virginia, Argal sailed direct to the Island 
of Mont Desert, where he thought he might find 
another French vessel. He anchored at the scene of 
his former exploits. It was a picture of Nature in re- 
pose that greeted this adventurer on plunder bent, 
with the slow-sinking sun gathering its slant arrows 
into its golden c^uiver, varied only by the slender 
smokes from the fires of the savage, that gleamed 
more brightly as the dusk fell. And then the stars 
came out, and one can see Argal pacing his deck in 
anticipation of the destruction he intended to visit 
on the remnants of the St. Savior settlement the next 
day; for, says Biart, ''They burnt our fortifications 
and pulled down our crosses, and put up one as a sign 
that they were taking possession of the land as Lords. 
This cross had the name of the King of Great Britain 
engraved upon it." 

Not even the grave of the valorous Du Thet escaped 
Argal 's vandalism, and the spot where lie the ashes 
of that loyal son of France was at once obliterated, 
along with the sites of these first rude homes and the 
slender trenches of its first defenses. St. Savior was 
destroyed, and its colony scattered, and all the Mar- 
chioness de Guercheville was able to recover from 
the ruins of her fond dreams for the proselyting of 
the savage was the ship of La Saussayc. Perhaps 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 353 

that was all that might have been expected from 
so badly officered an expedition. The seal of con- 
demnation was upon it from the first, as it is on all 
enterprises that are founded in the base passions of 
men. Argal did not go unscathed, for, upon leaving 
the devastation of Port Royal, he ran into a gale, 
losing one of his ships. The one which carried the 
treacherous Biart was driven across seas to the 
Azores, from whence she sailed to Wales, where the 
priest, and possibly the Jonah of the voyage, was set 
on shore, finding his way to France, where he set up as 
a professor of theology, for which he was seemingly 
well fitted, his militant disposition finally drifting 
him into the army, where he burnished the consciences 
of the soldiers for the remainder of his days. 

This is the story of the pioneers of Mont Desert and 
of the only settlement that graced its wilderness of 
mountains and streams for more than a century. One 
who knows Mont Desert will at once tell you where 
Hull's Cove is. It has some interesting associations, 
being the dwelling-place of Marie Therese de Gregoire, 
a direct descendant of De la Mothe Cadillac, the Lord 
of Doiiequet and Mont Desert. As has been noted, 
Cadillac had a grant of the island from the French 
Crown, though he never made use of it. and it was 
some short time after the close of the Revolutionary 
War, 1786, that the Gregoires, husband and wife, 
came to this country, where, before the (Jeneral Court 
in Boston, Madame Gregoire asked for the confirma- 
tion of her title to the Island of Mont Desert as a 
granddaughter of M. Cadillac. The General Court 



354 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

naturalized the Gregoires, and their three children as 
well, and confirmed her in the possession of the island, 
notwithstanding it had in 1762 been granted by the 
same body to Governor Bernard, with the approval 
of the King; but his conduct in the Revolutionary 
days wrought a forfeiture, and opened the way to the 
Gregoires. The year before the arrival of these French 
people one-half the island had been granted to Sir 
John Bernard, but that fell through by non-compli- 
ance of contract. The recognition of the Gregoires was 
an exhibition of comity, as Lafayette had made some- 
what strenuous exertion in her behalf, and with a 
desire on the part of the new republic " to cultivate 
a mutual confidence and union between the subjects 
of His Most Christian Majesty and the citizens of this 
State." 

Thus it was that sixty thousand acres of island 
estate fell to the Gregoires, which included, as well, 
some part of the mainland, that already occupied by 
actual settlers being exempted. They went from 
Boston to Mont Desert, where they immediately 
offered their lands at the minimum charge of one 
dollar the acre, even at which price the sales were 
limited. With their coming one notes that this is the 
second occupancy of the island after the landing of 
Champlain, and the coincidence, as well, that it was 
by the naturalized heir of its first and only French 
patentee. 

They built their house back from the shore some 
half-mile or more, and the site is still pointed out to 
the curious visitor. It is not difficult to rebuild the 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



355 



diminutive castle or chateau of the Grcgoires, for 
they had some means, and their inclination was, 
doubtless, to have their surroundings as suggestive 
of the old France as their circumstances would allow. 
It was most likely of stone, with so much of that 
material under foot, and its gray pile loomed up 




DEVILS DEN, SCHOONER HEAD 



warmly against the deep tones of the verdurous back- 
ground, making a (luaint picture in its isolation. Its 
windows were barred, of course, and its doors were 
massive, thick-studded with nails, and secured by 
huge bolts; for here was a life of seclusion, with only 
the shouts of the children to l)reak the silences 
that pervaded this monotony of Nature. To the lat- 
ter here was a continual feast, while to their elders 
were left only the passing of one day to another, the 



356 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

dreams of the regal splendors of the French Court, 
and the memories of a great family name. Tradition 
has it that M. Gregoire had his French vintages, del- 
icate and sparkling, which were reenforced by the 
more robust and sustaining qualities inlierent in a 
prime Santa Cruz, with the sweetening of the Bar- 
badoes to allay its roughness. 

It is said that an old French friar was wont to 
come to see the Gregoires, and how late they sat up 
nights before the ruddy hearth that lent a cheerful 
glow to the chateau hall, with their sparkling Langue- 
doc or their hot Santa Cruz between them, no one 
knows ; for it is safe to assume that between their sips, 
and whiffs of tobacco, many a story was told of sunny 
France, and much was brought by the priest by way 
of gossip as to what was going on in the old country in 
politics, for that was the Jesuit's stock in trade, — 
to entertain in order that he might convert. It is 
barely possible that Madame, stately and proud, or 
generously solicitous of good humor, or sedately ex- 
clusive, kept them fair company, and Monsieur saw 
that her glass was kejjt filled as well. 

There is a burying-ground a little way up the road, 
and here are the graves of these people, marked by 
some rude stones. Nature-hewn, just outside its bar- 
rier near the southeast corner. It is said that Mon- 
sieur was the first to set out on the lone journey, to 
be followed some three years after by the Madame. 
When she was arrayed for her burial a belt stuffed 
with gold was taken from her body. After that next 
to nothing is known of the children of these first per- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 357 

manent settlers, and with them the Gregoires had 
seemingly vanished into obscurity. 

Wild tales of the unearthing of hidden treasure on 
the island have been told, and it is currently believed 
that a part of the pirate Kidd's evil gains were found 
on the east side of Somes' Sound, opposite Fernald's 
Point. The tradition is based upon the tale of a ser- 
vant, whose master was immediately raised from a life 
of labor and hardship to apparent affluence. The 
servant said his master found a pot of gold. It may 
have been true, for if ever there was an ideal pirate's 
retreat, it was here in isolate and uninhabited Somes' 
Sound, where, until the coming of the Gregoires, was 
no sign of other than the savage dweller, whose shell- 
heaps are the only relics of his occupation. Credu- 
lous men have dug the ground over, here or there, 
but the so arduously searched for buried money is as 
elusive as the Phantom Schooner, — 

"The ghost of what was once a ship. — " 

that, from time to time, fraught with the omen of 
Death to some one of the islanders, sweeps in with 
bellying canvas, yet 

" never comes the ship to port 

Howe'er the breeze may be; 
Just when she nears the waiting shore 

She drifts again to sea. 
No tack of sail nor turn of helm, 

Nor sheer of veering side; 
Stern-fore she drives to sea and night 

Against the wind and tide." 



358 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 



As she nears the land one discerns the misty forms 
of her crew standing by her thwarts like statues. 
Her master leans over the rail and points to the 
depths of the sea. Taut-rigged, and shapely as a sea- 
fowl, she skims the waters, and so real is the illusion 




THE CAVE, SCHOONER HEAD 



one shouts, "Ahoy!" A sepulchral flame flares from 
her tops; her masts quiver like the wrinkle of their 
reflections in the sea; her stays are loosed and the 
snowy sails blow away on the winds. The weird vision 
is faded, only to come again when the mists roll in; 
for this is the land of mists and vaporous mysteries. 
Whenever the winds blow hither the coolness of the 
northern waters there comes a sensitized film of low- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 359 

hanging vapor upon which whole fleets are photo- 
graphed, or 

"low, far islands, looming tall and nigh; 
And ships, with upturned keels, sail like a sea the sky;" 

for here is the home of the Magician whose domain of 
enchantments is sounded only by the limits of one's 
imagination. 

It was in the days when Captain Kidd sailed the 
seas, and when that redoubtable pirate was haunting 
the Bahama waters like an uneasy spirit, that the 
Phantom Ship of Mont Desert began veering across 
the offing of Schooner Head. Kidd was in wait for 
some kind of prey, and had for some days hugged the 
narrow lagoons of the Antilles, dodging in and out the 
mysterious inlets that open and shut with the shift- 
ing of the shadows, leaning just far enough over their 
yellow sand-ribs so he might scan the horizon, and 
then shrinking to his hiding again. 

One day his rakish craft had hardly poked her 
shark-nose over the reef on the flood of the tide, than 
a huge West Indiaman broke the veil of the morning 
mist, her topsails towering above the low decks of the 
pirate. Kidd piped all hands to quarters and ran for 
the Iniliaman. which fell an easy prey, and ])r()ved a 
rich prize, — laden with gold and silver ingots for the 
Spanish mint-master. The treasure was shifted to 
the pirate's decks, and when the last man of the West 
Indiaman had walked the |)lank, the ship itself was 
scuttled, and the sand-hornet had slunk back to its 
hidintj: in some one of the nianv retreats known only 



360 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

to Kidd and his men. It was there they put the gold 
and silver into a smaller, swifter keel, and Kidd gave 
its command to a lieutenant, wdth directions to sail 
for Mont Desert, where was an isolate, unfrecjuented 
cave used by the pirate as a place for the secreting 
of their plunder. 

The sails were run up on the little schooner, and 
once out on the wide sea she flew with the wings of 
a bird. It was a pleasant voyage despite the sailor 
superstition that a woman aboard ship is as bad as 
a parson, and that was ominous enough, for the 
lieutenant had his wife along with him for company; 
but the skies held fair and the winds were kind until 
they reached the coast of Maine, where the craft ran 
into a fog so dense that the helmsman could not see 
the forecastle chains. The craft nosed along toward 
the island, cutting the fog with a light breeze until 
about sundown, when the wind stiffened and the fog 
melted away like a breath on a mirror, revealing, a 
mile or more to windward, the trim lines of a British 
corvette. 

The corvette had a keen nose for suspicious charac- 
ters, for, descrying the schooner, she immediately 
sent a shot from her Long Tom after the little craft, 
which was already showing a pretty wake astern. 
With the going of the mists the wdnd slackened to a 
light breeze, giving the schooner the advantage for 
a little; then it freshened, to kick up a nasty sea, and 
the corvette had the best of the chase. There was 
nothing for the schooner to do but to run for the shore, 
with the hope of finding some one of the many sounds 




GORGE OF SCHOONER HEAD 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 361 

or inlets along the coast whose waters were too shoal 
for the pursuer. The pirate swung off until she had 
the wind over her starboard quarter, and was headed, 
as the skipper reckoned, for the mouth of Otter 
Cove. The dusk fell rapidly, and he hoped to 
be able to run in far enough to get the treasure ashore 
in his boats after scuttling the schooner, and, by ma- 
king Somes' Sound overland, to find some friendly 
craft by which he coukl get away while the corvette 
was beating around by Frenchman's Bay. 

But the wind had risen to a gale, and he was driven 
past the entrance to the Cove. He heard the breakers, 
but, sure of making his harborage, he made for a light 
spot in the face of the cliff above the ledge of Spout- 
ing Horn, taking it for an opening in the shore, bowl- 
ing along under a ten-knot jjreeze. The corvette was 
game, and kept the course of the flying schooner, her 
Long Tom barking hoarsely above the tumult of the 
sea. It was a chance shot, that last, but it knocked 
the helmsman over his wiieel, and, spinning down the 
deck, cut the main halliards, and the schooner was 
doorned ; for down came gaff and mainsail in a heap 
to the deck. The lieutenant caught the wheel, but 
luff, wear, to port or starboard, the vessel would not; 
but flew on like a frightened sea-l^rd over the hid- 
den reefs, while the pirate crew huddled in their terror 
well abaft, where the skipper-wife kept fearless com- 
panionship with her husband at the wheel, both with 
their faces to the ghastly line of surf that gleamed 
with a phosphorescent pallor through the night, and 
marked the rocks of Schooner Head. 



362 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 



Unless the little craft could climb the stark walls of 
its towering crags it must go to the bottom. Sud- 
denly a huge wave caught it, lifted it high in air, and 
then dropped it with a crash on the dripping ledges 
of Spouting Horn. The foremast went, and two or 




SPOUTING HORN 



three of the ruffians clambered to shore upon it before 
it fell into the water. The skipper held to the wheel, 
while the woman dropped to her knees by his side 
and prayed on that blood-stained deck as only a 
woman may, while the sea played at bowls with the 
wooden shell, as a wild beast with its captured prey 
until the last quivering muscle is stilled. Once more 
the waves lifted the schooner, to throw it against the 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 363 

almost invisible walls, and thon the undertow caught 
its crushed timbers to swallow them at a single gulp. 

The lookout on the corvette, to whom the schooner 
had been visible a moment before, looked in vain for 
the gray sail that had before loomed in the dark like 
a huge j)hantom shroud, and to the end of his days 
he insisted that it was The Flying Dutchman that had 
led him into the outer breakers of Sjjouting Horn. 

In years after, the smugglers who haunted the Mont 
Desert shores, as they made the mouth of Otter Cove 
on moonlit nights, saw this same gray sail beating 
across the outer bay, or chafing under the cliffs, and 
were wont to tell tales of a strange ship rising from 
out the sea when, 

"Whistling and shrieking, wild and wide, 
The mad wind raged, and strong and fast 
Rolled in the rising tide," 

and a i)haiit()ni of the sea, wiiosc j)liant<»ni hchnsnian 
drove his craft over the ledges of Spouting Horn and 
past the ragged rocks of Schooner Head, was painted 
against the offing. Mayhaj) these were the rotting 
sails, dripping with the brine of the sea, of the pirate 
that were limned on the sky at dusk, or that flecked 

"tlie outer gray beyond 
The sundown's golden trail," 

which made the superstitious fisher-folk wonder 
whose omen it was when the schooner's ghost rounded 
the bristling spruces of the headlands down the bay. 

■'.Shake, brown old wives, with dreary joy. 
Your gray-head hints of ill; 



364 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

And, over sick-beds whispering low, 

Your prophecies fulfil. 
Some home amid yon birchen trees 

Shall drape its doors with woe ; 
And slowly where the Dead Ship sails, 

The burial boat shall row." 

It is a talc to tell as the moon comes up over the 
waters, as one sits in the shadows of the Mont Desert 
cliffs, while out of the slow-rising mists one carves the 
low rakish hull of Kidd's treasure-laden schooner, 
with its bellying sails, until the vision is a reality, and 
one finds relief only by looking off to the cheerful 
lights of Desert Rock. 

It is true that Somes' Sound affords the most 
picturesque scenery of the island. The mountains are 
painted in its drowsing waters so that their rugged 
outlines are more clearly discerned and their beauty 
appreciated; but one's powers of description fail when 
the essay is made to portray in words the subtle and 
elusive charm that holds one silent in admiration. 
Here are jagged peaks and deeps of tangled woods 
where the sun paints pictures all day long in marvel- 
lous colors, colors that were never on the palette of 
the painter. Valleys are grooved everywhere, and a 
thousand feet in air tower the sunlit crags of the 
overhanging mountain. One never tires of this mag- 
nificent display of Nature. Here one may go moun- 
tain climbing, trout-fishing, or essay the pastoral 
delights of raking the odorous hay in season, or 

"drink with glad still lips the blessing of the sky." 

Mont Desert was a favorite hunting-ground for the 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 365 

Indian, and Hubbard has a tale that dates as far back 
as 1677, when St. Castin had just made his way to 
Pentagoet. The savages were on the warpath, and it 
so happened that a son of Parson Cobett, of Ipswich, 
was in Falmouth at the time that place was raided. 
He found himself a captive, and was taken to the 
country of the Penobscot. It was a custom among 
the savages to attach their captives to themselves as 
servants. Cobett found himself bound to a savage, 
who took him to this island, where he was accustomed 
to pass the winters, making at his leisure his ))lans 
for his fishings, huntings, and occasional inroads on 
the settlers. Hubbard says: ''In that desert-like 
condition was the poor young man forced to con- 
tinue nine weeks in the service of a savage mis- 
creant, who would sometimes tyrannize over him, be- 
cause he could not understand his language, and for 
want thereof might occasion him to miss his game, or 
the like." He says of the savage: "On a sudden he 
took a resolution to send this young man down to 
Mr. Casteen to procure more powder to kill moose and 
deer, which it seems is all their way of living at Mount 
Desert." 

He made the journey safely, and so impressed " Mr. 
Casteen" that his ransom was effected for a good coat. 
Cobett went back to Ipswich, where he no doubt 
married and t(^ld his children how he had iiunted 
with the savages when the weather was too cold to be 
withstood, and how he had fallen in the snow, to be 
taken on the shoulders of his captors and carried to 
the wisiwam to be thawed out. He told them great 



366 THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 

stories of the beaver-houses he saw there, for the re- 
mains of their dams are to be found nowadays, as 
they may be in many parts of Maine where the settle- 
ments are older than those at Mont Desert. Here were 
the haunts of the otter and the mink, for wherever 
there is an abundance of trout these fur-bearers are 
likely to be; for they are great and industrious fishers 
along the wild streams of the interior, though the 
otter is growing more scarce as the fisherman makes 
his summer outing farther into the deeps of the 
woods. 

Not all the wildness of Mont Desert is shorn, for 
one does not find a compass amiss whose feet are 
strange to the shadows of its hooded rocks and the 
jungles that crowd upon their granite ankles. One finds 
here not infrequently the aboriginal wildcat, and the 
red deer roam its woodland aisles as in the days when 
Argal choked them with the smokes of the burning 
cabins of La Saussaye. Right here it may be men- 
tioned that at the destruction of Port Royal by the 
Virginia freebooter, as the Jesuit Biart, Nero-like, 
looked on, he expressed the hopeful reflection that it 
might please the Lord "that the sins therein com- 
mitted might likewise have been consumed in that 
conflagration." 

Wliat a virulent fellow he must have been! 

Wliat the fate of the Guercheville Colony might 
have been had it been planted at Kadesquit is only 
to be guessed; but it is not likely that it would have 
shared the untoward fate of the settlement on Fer- 
nald's Point, for that is wher(> Mr. Hamlin has located 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTLX 



367 



it. The story of Pentagoet would have read differ- 
ently, possibly, had the French had twenty years the 
start of the '' Undertakers;" but 
it is not settled that the Dutch 
did not anticipate all these em- 
bryo civilizations of the French 
and English. New light is be- 
ing thrown upon ^ 
these earliest days -^^ ^ — 
and the players who ^ 
stalked across their 
stage, and it is not 




OTTER CLIFF 



368 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

impossible that there may be a Dutch narration hid- 
den away somewhere, or lying in wait for the anti- 
quarian nose. 

From 1613 to the coming of the Gregoires in 1788 
there was no settlement here of white people. It was 
a desert island indeed so far as its occupation by 
Europeans is to be considered. Monliegan was occu- 
pied from an early day, and the occupation was con- 
tinued with the exception of a few blanks in the grow- 
ing years, mainly by fishermen; but no diversion 
seems to have been made to the eastward. Mont 
Desert was in the neutral zone, and while the slender 
contingent at Pentagoet was busily occupied in 
schemes of self-preservation, the English at Pema- 
quid, along the Sheepscot, and on Arrowsic Island 
were content with their holding so long as they were 
undisturbed. It was unfortunate that the authorities 
of Massachusetts Bay could not have seen their duty 
clearer, and have kept their itching palms cooled 
with some soothing lotion other than the soft pile of 
a Penobscot beaver-skin. Tradition locates the Somes 
famUy here about 1760, coming from Cape Ann, and 
the site of his cabin is still pointed out. He was fol- 
lowed by settlers from Cape Cod, but this conflicts 
somewhat with the Gregoire account. 

There is a very interesting tradition that has found 
lodgment along these green slopes above Southwest 
Harbor, which is that the famous Talleyrand was born 
here, where he spent some portion of his boyhood. 
It is a romantic story, with its high-lights and shad- 
ows mingling in a tale of love and misplaced confi- 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



369 



dence. An ancient cellar is still pointed out at the 
head of Southwest Harbor, where was once a house, 




GREAT HEAD 



and in which, it is averred, with how much truth yet 
remains to be established, the great dii)lomat of France 
was born and passed his early years. 



370 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

The tale has come down from the older French resi- 
dents and is something after this fashion. In this old 
house, now rotted away, there lived a man and his 
wife who had passed the meridian of life. They were 
French, and with them lived a granddaughter, whose 
mother had been laid away in the little burial-ground 
that overlooked the sea, upon which the father at that 
time was away on a voyage to a distant port. The 
girl was turning sixteen, a wild blossom, and a beau- 
tiful girl whose budding charms had almost blown 
into the petals of the full flower. It was in these days 
of 1754 that a French trading-vessel was driven into 
the harbor in a stress of storm, by reason of which it 
was here sometime delayed on its voyage. Among 
its passengers was a fine fellow, whose dress and car- 
riage bespoke the gentleman. He found his way to 
the shore, where he made the acquaintance of these 
islanders, and to whose humble home he found his 
way daily so long as the vessel remained in the harbor. 
The attraction was evidently the charming grand- 
daughter. The acquaintance ripened, so that they 
were seen much together by the neighbors, in their 
daily rambles, who boded no good from so sudden an 
intimacy, as neighbors sometimes will. For all that, 
the course of their love ran smoothly enough when 
the man and the maid were together. The days sped 
and were too soon done, for it was morning only to 
merge into nightfall. Nature existed for these two 
alone, and they forgot all but themselves, — the world 
was theirs, such was the alchemy of Love. 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 371 

In their trj'sting-place by the seashore, under the featherj' hem- 
locks 
Sat the lovers, clad in the royal purple of twilight ; 
The sun toppled over the sea into the Vale of To-morrow. 
Like censers a-swing afar off, at the touch of the Infinite 
The lonely stars glinunered, as in the stout belt of Orion; 
Or, thickly strewn, as the sands on the marge of the ocean. 
Made a luminous path through the shailowy highlands of heaven. 
Then, reluctant, they went to thefann-house, she lifting her skirts 

from her ankles. 
For the dew was caressing the close-shut lids of the clover. 
He, folding her close from the night-winds, tenderly guiding her 

footsteps — 
Steps leaden with slowness, her heart like the down of the eider; 
Silent she was. or laughing, conning their plans for the morrow. 
Until, under the fret of the woodbine, that helil the porch in its 

shadow. 
They parted, again and again, with many sweet words of 

affection, 
That, like odors, soft and delicious, haunting one's garb, beget 

fond recollection. 
Played and toyed with her heart, as the tide of the sea with the 

seaweed. 
While she watched from her half-open lattice, where the trail of 

the boat, ever widening. 
Wrought the gold of the .sea's phosphorescence into glittering 

hopes of the future. 

Then camo the tlawn again, when the winds were 
never softer, the sunshine more beneficent; when 
under the wand of the Wizard every nodding blossom 
in the grass bent and courtesied with seihictive in- 
vitation, and Love shot his arrows all the faster, 
while the wooing of her Gascon lover grew more 
ardent. What wonder! for 

" Fair was she to behold, that maiden of .seventeen summers. 
Black were her eyes as the berry that grows on the thorn by 
the wayside, 



372 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

Black, yet how softly they gleamed beneath the brown shade 

of her tresses! 
Sweet was her breath as the breath of the kine of the meadows." 

But the Gascon youth whom she had dowered with 
her girlhood was to sail away. She watched the 
sailors at the anchors. The sails went slowly up, 
the clues made fast, one by one, and the ship swung 
to the tide. The sheets took on the curve of a gull's 
wing and filled away. She watched the ship, freighted 
with the romance of her young life, fade into the sea- 
mists where 

" the great sun 
Looked with the eye of love through the golden vapors about 
him," 

and night had come again, and the glamour of love 
was spent. 

But life kept its even flow at the farmhouse 
above the waters of Southwest Harbor, its tide of 
circumstance rising higher, ever higher. Suns rose 
and set upon its restless horizon; the blossoms went 
and came again, and one day another Gascon found 
his way to the farmhouse, — a boy babe. Under its 
sheltering roof lived the mother and the child, when 
they were not scanning the horizon. 

In their eyry among the rocks by the seashore under the 
feathery hemlocks; 

for in the heart of the mother was always the prophecy 
of her Gascon lover's return. It was the seventh sum- 
mer. The dew was on the clover, and a strange sail 
was on the horizon. A merchant-vessel sailed into 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTLY 



373 



the harbor, armed with heavy fjuns, licr crew clad in 
the uniform of France. Hardly had her anchors 
broken the waters apart than a boat shot from her 
side to make the shore, and one who seemed to be in 




DEVIL S DEN 



autiiority had leaj)t to the sands. The ancient hem- 
locks still held the shore in their soft shadows. The 
stranger began his inquiries for a child of French par- 
entage whose age might be seven years, and a fisher- 
man pointed to the crags that leaned out over the sea. 
His quest was soon ended, for the lad stood before 



374 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

him, a lithe and comely little fellow, active and of 
fine physique. He was a lad of promise and the 
stranger wished to take him away at once, but the 
mother demurred, for he was all left of those too 
few days of her romance. 

But the stranger was persistent, and yet she would 
not spare him, despite promises of good care, educa- 
tion, and a noble position in life. He came again and 
again, his efforts unavailing, to at last bring a heavy 
sack of coin, which he threw upon the table, and the 
little fellow had dropped out of sight as if the earth 
had yawned and swallowed him. The grandparents 
never saw him again, but the mother lived to hear of 
her son as the greatest statesman and diplomatist of 
Europe, — the famous Charles Maurice de Talley- 
rand-Perigord, Prince de Bene vent. The stranger 
had kept his word, but whether that was sufficient 
compensation for the lonesome days that fell to her 
lot one may never know. It was years later that the 
French celebrity came to Mont Desert, but whether 
the mother was living the tradition does not re- 
late. 

Talleyrand was an exile from France in 1794 and 
was in this country. He was at the Hancock house in 
Boston, an old hostelry that may still be seen border- 
ing a little alley at the rear of Faneuil Hall. He was in 
Machias, and at that time was a man of perhaps forty 
years, and is said to have remarked to Judge Jones, at 
whose house he was one day taking dinner, that he 
would like to see "the mountain on the sea," ' and 
which he exhibited " an innate childish longing to 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 375 

behold." There is a tracHtion extant that the former 
Lieutenant-Governor Robljins of Massachusetts met 
Talleyrand here in 1794. Robbins was " a gentleman 
of extensive information, something of an antiquarian, 
and whose organ of inquisitiveness was very promi- 
nent." He met the Frenchman in Boston, and a few 
weeks after his business interests took him to Mont 
Desert, where, much to his surprise, Talleyrand, who 
hap])ened to be there, and apparently incog., evaded 
his (luestionings and was inclined to snub him. The 
lieutenant-governor could not keep the secret, and so 
informed the islanders — for it was not then a sum- 
mering-place — of the great man who had so quietly 
come among them, and who had spent his time stroll- 
ing about the island, which had already aroused their 
rustic curiosity. As they began to discuss the French- 
man, some of the older habitues of the ]jlace had 
taken note of his lameness and his way of walking, 
and they were not slow in recalling the " I'rench 
boy" who was taken away by a stranger about the 
time the Frencli \\i\v terminated. These comments 
but added fuel to the curiosity of the lieutenant- 
governor, who thereui^on began a systematic inquiry, 
and the tales of the old settlers were confirmed, with 
this additional : that when the lad was about a year 
old a kettle of scalding water was accidentally over- 
turned upon his feet, which so crippled his toes that 
he thereafter walked as one lamed. 

Williamson regards this as im])ortant evidence in 
favor of the tradition, and the dii)lomat has been 
averred to have been the natural son of Captain 



376 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



Bailie Talleyrand, a younger brother of Count de 
Talleyrand, for which M. Colmache is authority. 
Griswold, the historian, admits that '\some curious 
facts have been adduced in support of this opinion;" 
i.e., that Talleyrand " was a native of Mount Desert, 
in Maine." Even if it were true, the Frenchman's 




OLD BRUCE HOUSE, MACHIAS, WHERE TALLEYRAND STOPPED 



vanity, and his disposition ever to deceive, which was 
notorious, would lead him to claim Paris as his birth- 
place. 

The De Peyster journals and collections referred to 
by De Costa in his story of Mont Desert are possibly 
more entertaining than valuable, so far as they may 
appertain to this island, for they are made up of tales 
of a credulous constituency. General de Peyster spent 
some time at Mont Desert nosing about and listening 



THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 377 

to the tales of its habitues in and about Somes' Sound; 
and he says that he " stopped at the house of old Mr. 
Isaac Mayhew, to ask him about the site of the first 
French settlement. He told me that when he came 
into this neighborhood seventy-nine years ago (which 
would have been about 1777), there was no difference 
of opinion with regard to the site of that colony. As 
I supposed, Flynn's Point was designated; and he 
heard his father say that that was the point occu- 
pied." To the in<iuiry if he had ever heard of a settle- 
ment at Northeast Harbor, the rei)ly was in the neg- 
ative. It will be remembered that between 1613 and 
1777 was a great blank of one hundred and sixty- 
three years, so that what the oldest settler might say 
of the matter would i^ossess little value. 

The General was told, in his perambulations about 
the island, " that the first French settlers cleared the 
ridge extending to the sea-wall and Flynn's Point; 
also that they occupied dwellings over the cellars and 
hearths still existing," which one doubts if the wran- 
gles described by Father Biart actually took place, 
for three months could scarcely have accomplished 
so arduous a labor; and as for cellars, one may safely 
assume that none were dug. The traditions of Mont 
Desert as related by the old settler i)artake of the 
character of the P'rench relics unearthed from time to 
time, — they are of too modern an origin to possess 
any value to the antiquarian. 

As limited as is the material, the story of Mont 
Desert in its earliest days is interesting from its his- 
toric association. One sees the panorama of the early 



378 THE LAND OF ST. CAST IN 

French and English expeditions pass, as did Richard 
the ghosts as he slept on Bosworth Field. It is a 
mingling of knightly adventurers, of Jesuits, sol- 
diery, peasant, and untutored savage, all smirched 
with blood, befouled with smut and smoke, and all 
clinging to the thread of Fate that felt the scissors at 
untoward times. It was an oUa podrida of honest 
men and thieves, with papists and protestants in 
their train, and with all their bickerings and quarrels ; 
the era of poisoners and legalized piracies, and Rav- 
illacs. History of the most repulsive sort was made 
with a surprising degree of rapidity, and yet the crags 
of this "mountain in the sea" still turn their rugged 
yet peaceful faces to the sun as it comes up over the 
waters that bore these olden adventurers hither, and 
gaze into the mysteries of its setting beyond the west- 
ern woods with the same silent grandeur as when the 
ships of La Saussaye anchored under their shadows, 
to be swept into oblivion by the greed of Argal. 

It is a famous island, of famous memory, short 
though it be, and it stands now, as it once did, the 
grand warden of the " Baya jermosa" of the times of 
the adventurous Gomez, the great stone guardian 
of the sail-flecked Penobscot, and where 

"The harp at Nature's advent strung 
Has never ceased to play; 
The song the stars of morning sung 
Has never died away." 

Its mountains are grandly inspiring, and at their feet 
are the mysteries of the dusky valleys in which are 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



379 



the mirrored patches of the sky, where one hears the 
whisperings of the Naiads that haunt the shelving 
marge where the slender reeds bend and make grace- 
ful obeisance to the vagrant winds that have climbed 




THE OVENS 



the mountain steeps, whose feet are in the deeps of 
an ocean whose power and majesty come to possess 
every fibre of your consciousness, and whose vast- 
ness is your salvation. But the glory of the sea, 
familiar as it has ever been, owned to its sweetest 
mystery when it seemed 



"To lift a half-faced moon in sight; 
And shoreward, o'er the waters gleamed, 
From crest to crest, a line of light, 



380 



THE LAND OF ST. CASTIN 



Such as of old, with solemn awe, 
The fishers by Gennesaret saw, 
When dry-shod o'er it walked the Son of God, 
Tracking his waves with light where'er his sandals 
trod." 

It is then one has visions, and nowhere are they 
more vivid than under the black background of the 
spHntered domes and dusky shag of the crags of Mont 
Desert when the round moon writes upon its restless 
seas the legends of its romantic shores. 




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